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UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 



THE 



HEATHEN RELIGION 



IN ITS 



f aplar suit Sptblual Dtbtiopunt 



BY 

REV. JOSEPH B. GROSS. 






BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR AND WORTHINGTON. 

NEW YORK : SHELDON, LAMPORT AND BLAKEMAN. 

1856. 



Ox* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by 

JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE : 

ALLEN AND FARNHAM, SXEREOTTPEJRa AND PRINTERS. 



DEDICATION. 



TO YOU, 

WHOSE INTELLIGENCE RAISES YOU ABOVE VULGAR PREJUDICES J 

"WHOSE JUDGMENT IS ENLIGHTENED, 

AND WHOSE OPINION MERITS RESPECT, 

THE FOLLOWING PAGES, 

ILLUSTRATING AX INTERESTING AND IMPORTANT BRANCH OF HUMAS 

KNOWLEDGE AS DISPLAYED IN ALL AGES OF THE WORLD 

IN CERTAIN STAGES OF MENTAL CULTURE, 

AND DESERVING THE 

PROFOUND ATTENTION OF THE CHRISTIAN AND THE SCHOLAR, 

ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY 

- THE AUTHOR. 



INTRODUCTION, 



Perhaps on no subject within the ample range of human 
knowledge, have so many fallacious ideas been propagated as 
upon that of the gods and the worship of heathen antiquity. 
Nothing but a shameful ignorance, a pitiable prejudice, or" the 
most contemptible pride, which denounces all investigations as a 
useless or a criminal labor, when it must be feared that they will 
result in the overthrow of prcestablishcd systems of faith, or the 
modification of long cherished principles of science, can have thus 
misrepresented the theology of heathenism, and distorted — nay, 
caricatured — its forms of religious worship. It is time that pos- 
terity should raise its voice in vindication of violated truth, and 
that the present age should learn to recognize in the hoary past 
at least a little of that common sense of which it boasts with as 
much self-complacency, as if the prerogative of reason was the 
birthright only of modern times. 

In our researches into the religion of the heathens, a just regard 
to truth requires that a proper distinction should be made between 
its successive stages of development, as well as between the differ- 
ent classes of society by whom it was professed. In the earlier 
ages of the world, the universe could not be contemplated by the 
untutored mind of man, as the sole production of a Supreme 
Being, as he was incapable of reasoning a posteriori; and it was 
reserved for the Novum Organum of a Lord Bacon, in more recent 

A* (V) 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

times, to point out the inductive "way, which leads through nature 
up to nature's God. All the objects and phenomena in the visible 
world were then not only considered to be animate and preter- 
natural, but also to be endowed with divinity, and as being either 
good or bad ; and therefore propitious or adverse to the interests 
of mankind : all nature teemed with fetiches, and resounded with 
oracular communications. Polytheism and idolatry were the im- 
mediate and necessary consequences of these erroneous ideas ; 
and they who best understood how to interpret the mysteries of 
nature, or were the most devout and zealous in the observance of 
the duties which they enjoined, were by common consent pro- 
moted to the rank of priests — the consecrated mediators between 
the gods and their votaries. At a more advanced stage of moral 
and intellectual culture, this theological system of the infantine 
mind — the pantheism of the primeval ages, was subjected to a 
severe logical scrutiny, and metaphysical induction at last predi- 
cated the existence of a Supreme Being as the author and gov- 
ernor of all things. 

From this period, the gods of the priests and sages resolved 
themselves into the attributes and manifestations of the Eternal, 
and henceforth ceased to exist as independent beings ; while in 
the popular creed, connived at by the better informed, they con- 
tinued to enjoy their ancient prerogatives, and to maintain their 
accustomed influence. DiiFerent names distinguished the Supreme 
Being, according to the various nations and languages amono- 
whom he was recognized and adored. Thus among the Egyp- 
tians, he was denominated Kneph ; among the Persians, Zeruane 
Akerene ; among the Hindoos, Parabrahma ; among the Phoe- 
nicians, Greeks, and Romans, Chronos or Saturn — the Absolute 
in the fathomless immensity of time ; and among the Scandina- 
vians, Surtur, or the God in statu abscondito. The attributes and 
cosmic manifestations of the Supreme Being, were personified or 
considered as so many gods or divine hypostases ; for those an- 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

cicnt metaphysicians seemed to have reasoned somewhat after this 
manner : " The Supreme Being has attributes or qualities "which 
collectively make up his being ; hence, as he would not be the 
Supreme Being if any of these accessories were wanting, it fol- 
lows that each one of them must be the Supreme Being, because 
each one includes or requires all the rest to complete the idea of 
such a being." The first evolutions or attributal manifestations 
of the Supreme Being became the parents or prolific source of 
other evolutions ; and thus there were as many divinities as there 
were distinct categories of qualities or powers in the physical and 
spiritual worlds. These powers or qualities were further contem- 
plated as masculine or feminine, or as begetting and conceiving 
and bearing. Thus ether, the atmosphere, light, fire, the sun, 
winds and storms, fear, virtue, etc., were gods ; and the moon, the 
earth, the night, the morning, the seasons of spring, summer, and 
autumn, wisdom, faith, justice, etc., were goddesses. 

These emanated divinities, or God manifested in the laws and 
phenomena of the universe and their worship, constituted the re- 
ligious system of the civilized societies of antiquity, and had the 
sanction of the State : it comprised the transition state between 
the crude religious notions of the primitive ages, and the elaborate 
metaphysical creed of the initiated into the mysteries of God, of 
creation, and of providence. Among the deities who thus gov- 
erned the world, were also its architects, or demiurgusses ; as 
Jupiter, Osiris, Ormuzd, and Brahma: Surtur, or the God in 
statu abscondito — the hidden God, introduced the creation of the 
world himself, as may be seen in the Scandinavian cosmogony, 
after which he consigned to Odin and -his two brothers its further 
development and completion. The theogonic and theological sys- 
tems of the ancient Persians, as far as Ormuzd and his congeneric 
divinities are concerned, may serve as a type of the general char- 
acter of the intermedial religious creed of the ancients. Ormuzd 
— light, goodness, in whom are united the three primordial, ethe- 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

real elements of light, fire, and water, emanated from Zeruane 
Akerene, who created him by simply pronouncing the logos or 
living word Honover: enohe verihe — I am, or belt. " Ormuzd," 
writes Blackwell,* " created the universe by pronouncing the 
living word Honover ; first his own abode of light, Sakhter, and 
then the Genii, or deities of Light, in three classes. The first class 
consists of the seven Amshaspands, Ormuzd himself being includ- 
ed in the number ; the others are Bahman, the genius of the re- 
gion of light ; Ardibehesht, the genius of ethereal fire ; Shariver, 
the genius of metals ; Sapandomad, the creatrix, or rather source, 
of fruitfulness ; Khordad, the genius of time ; and Amerdad, the 
tutelary genius of the vegetable world, and of flocks and herds. 
In the second class are the twenty-seven Izeds, male and female. 
These. are the elementary deities, as Khorshid, the sun; Mah, the 
moon ; Tashter, the dog-star, also the deity of rain ; Bapitan, the 
deity of heat, etc. ; and were probably those worshipped before 
the popular belief was not only thus reduced into a system like 
the Scandinavian, but refined to a high degree of intellectuality 
by the philosophical and ethical doctrines ingrafted on it. The 
third class consists of the Fervers : these are the vivifying princi- 
ples of nature, the ideal types of the material universe, correspond- 
ing in a great measure to the ideas of Plato. In heaven they 
keep watch against Ahriman and his host ; on earth they combat 
against the Genii of evil. Every one, even Ormuzd himself, has 
his Ferver. An Iranite has thus constantly by his side his ideal 
type, or uncorrupted immaterial image, to guide him through life 
and preserve him from evil." 

It was the symbolical representation of this intermedial theolog- 
ical system that so extensively engrossed the attention, and elicit- 
ed the ingenuity and skill of the Mero-artists of antiquity. Nor 

* A Critical Examination of the Leading Doctrines of the Scandinavian 
System of Mythology, in his Edition of Mallet's Northern Antiquities. 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

was the labor bestowed upon this branch of human speculation 
vain, or un-worthy the genius of mankind, as it promoted the inter- 
ests of science ; developed arts, the perfection of which modern 
times have not succeeded in surpassing ; illustrated the character, 
the relations, and the functions of the gods ; and responded, at 
least to some extent, to the moral wants and spiritual aspirations 
of the people of that age. 

To explain the apparent enigma in the moral and physical 
world, of the existence of evil in antagonism with goodness, the 
heathen sages, especially those among the Oriental nations, found- 
ed a theodikc,* which still occupies a conspicuous place in the re- 
ligious creeds of a numerous class of mankind, and which is now, 
as it was then, regarded as a satisfactory solution of this abstruse 
cosmic and psychological problem, as well as a most effectual vin- 
dication of the character of God : it is the doctrine of fallen spirits, 
who either sinned through their own spontaneity, or were tempted 
into rebellion by others. Loki, among the Scandinavians ; Ahri- 
man, among the Persians ; Moisasure, among the Hindoos ; Ty- 
phon, among the Egyptians, etc., led the van in this retrogressive 
and diabolical movement. 

A brief outline of the nature and actions of a few of these 
princes of evil may suffice to illustrate the doctrine of the kako- 
iheoi among the ancient?. In the Edda, according to the Northern 
Antiquities, Loki is described as the grand contriver of deceit and 
frauds ; as the calumniator of the gods ; and as the reproach of 
both gods and men. His figure is represented to be very comely, 
while his mind is so depraved, that he surpasses all mortals in the 
arts of craft and perfidy. Though Loki is so beautiful a devil, no 
one presumes to render divine honors to the fallen god. Sin is 

* The justification of God on account of the evil which exists in the 
world. Can there be virtue or moral goodness without an ethical com- 
bat? Reason and experience answer — No! 



X INTRODUCTION. 

prolific, and this Norse-personification of the evil principle is said 
to be the parent of a numerous progeny as malignant as himself. 
After order and harmony had reigned for a long time in the world 
of spirits, Moisasure, the Hindoo satan, grew envious of Brahma's 
resplendent light, and, aided by a prodigious number of inferior 
evil spirits, boldly renounced his fealty to Brahma. In vain did 
the god of light and truth endeavor to instil better principles into 
their debased minds, and, if possible, to bring about a reconcilia- 
tion. The rebel host, bent upon the annihilation of the rival em- 
pire, resorted to arms — the last expedient of tyrants — and began 
to wage a fierce and unrelenting war against Brahma and his 
faithful adherents. To chastise their insolent audacity, Siva, the 
third person in the Hindoo trinity, hurled them from heaven into 
Onderah, the abyss of darkness. Here they repented of their 
evil deeds, and means for their final restitution were provided ; 
under what conditions, and with what success, will be seen when 
we come to speak of future judgment. 

The Greeks and other nations had not only their Titans and 
giants, but also their good and evil genii or demons, who belonged 
to the train or category of the inferior gods. If we reflect that 
among the ancients knowledge was not so universally diffused as 
it is at the present day, but that, on the contrary, it was confined 
to the few whose social position or professional duties encouraged 
or demanded its acquisition, we may venture to assert that the 
symbolical garniture under which the gods and the religion of 
antiquity were represented, was generally cither little understood 
or erroneously interpreted by the multitude ; and that even many 
among the better informed laymen could give but a sorry account* 
of the evidences upon which their hope or their faith was based. 
As long as the interests of the priesthood were properly guarded, 
and a laudable spirit of emulation or of public use fulness prompted 
its members to scientific researches, there was no danger that the 
key which alone could unlock the mysteries which enveloped the 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

religious faith and ritual service of the heathens, would be lost, or 
that religion itself should cease to flourish. Such, history informs 
us, has been the case. In the course of ages, however, a different 
fate awaited the indefatigable founders of the vast and stately 
structure which composed the intermedial theological system of 
the heathen church. Now oppressed by tyranny or dissolved in 
sloth and luxury ; involved in the devastating and disorganizing 
tendencies of repeated and protracted wars, perhaps carried off as 
captives from their altars, their gods, and their people, in the bar- 
baric train of some haughty conqueror ; infidelity gradually infect- 
ing the semi-enlightened upper ranks of society, and generating 
the numerous vices incident to an irreligious state of the mind, 
the integrity of the public system. of religion became seriously 
affected ; piety rapidly declined, and faith lost its accustomed 
stimulus. They who had devised and perpetuated through a long 
course of ages the intricate theories of physical and metaphysical 
personifications and allegory, and had so successfully applied to 
them the ingenious system of hieroglyphical representations and 
symbolical interpretations, at last lost or undervalued the knowl- 
edge of their science, ceased to exist as a distinct or privileged 
body in the social organization, or could no longer stem the tide 
of corruption that everywhere threatened to overwhelm an insti- 
tution which required the combined wisdom and power of its 
founders, and the unimpaired faith and zeal of the people, to pre- 
serve it inviolate. Need we marvel that the ignorant multitude, 
no longer guided by the voice, or instructed by the example of 
the priests of former times; deprived of the sympathy of the 
higher classes, or vitiated through the corrupting influence of 
their licentious .manners, should eventually mistake the sign for 
the object which it was intended to symbolize, and once more — 
as was the case in primeval ages — literally worship wood and 
stone as the ne plus ultra of all that remained to them of their 
faith and of their gods ? Need any be surprised that under such 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

unpropitious circumstances, the neglected and downtrodden vota- 
ries of heathenism should have committed all kinds of pious follies 
and religious extravagances, and at last brought merited disgrace 
upon the religion which they professed ? 

Impartial justice demands that we should not estimate the merits 
of an institution by its corruptions and abuses, but by its pristine 
and normal character. The history of the Christian church, an 
institution still in its infancy, incontestabiy shows how easily the 
most superstitious and the most flagrant corruptions may gradually 
insinuate themselves into the faith and practice of the professors 
of even the most holy and Godlike religion ; and how unfair it 
would be to reproach the Christian religion with the impropri- 
eties and follies of its disciples. While therefore some palliation 
is allowed to be due to the imperfections in the Christian church, 
and a distinction is to be carefully made between the doctrines 
of the gospel and the lives of the Christians, let us but judge 
heathenism on the same discriminating principle ; make some 
allowance for the age and the state of human society in which it 
flourished or decayed, and we shall do justice to truth, justice to 
ourselves, and justice to Divine Providence. 

Fayette, February, 1854. 



Note. — In the preparation of the present work, the author has had 
occasion to make extensive use of the researches of some of his pred- 
ecessors, to whom reference could not always be made with conven- 
ience, and whose services to him therefore claim a proper recognition 
in this place. Accordingly, he gratefully acknowledges his indebted- 
ness to Professor Creuzef's voluminous and erudite work under the 
title of the Symbolik und Mythologie dcr alten Volkcr besonders der 
Gricchen ; to Doctor Mone's Geschichte des Heidentsums, im Nord- 
lichen Europa ; and to the authors of the Northern Antiquities, espec- 
ially to J. A. Blackwcll, Esq. 



CONTENTS 



BOOK I. 

THE HEATHEN RELIGION IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 



SECTION I. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS LN THE HUMAN 
MIND, AND THE LIGHT IN WHICH RELIGIOUS OBJECTS 
ARE CONTEMPLATED. 

Chapter I. Religious Ideas Page 3 

II. The Light in which Eeligious Objects are Con- 
templated 8 

section n. 

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF RELIGIOUS OBJECTS, REGARDED AS 
DEIFIED, AND THE WORSHIP WniCH IS BESTOWED UPON 
THEM. 

Chap. I. The Topography of Religious Objects, regarded as 

Deified .16 

II. The Worship of the Gods 21 

SECTION in. 

SACRED PLACES AND RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 

Chap. I. Sacred Places . 36 

II. Eeligious Festivals 40 



XIV CONTENTS. 



SECTION, IV. 

PRIESTS AND IDOLS. 

Chap. I. The Priests 45 

II. Idols 54 



SECTION V. 

THE CLASSIFICATION AND RELATIVE ANTIQUITY OF THE 
GODS. 

Chap. I. The Classification of the Gods .' . . . .66 
II. Their relative Antiquity ...... 73 

SECTION YL 

THE NATURE OR ATTRIBUTES OF THE GODS, AND THEIR 
MORAL AND PHYSICAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE WORLD. 

Chap. I. The Nature or Attributes of the Gods ... 82 

II. Their Moral and Physical Administration of the 

World . 92 



section yn. 

THE ORACLES, DIVINATIONS OR AUGURIES, AND ARUS- 
PICY OF HEATHENISM, AND THE FUTURE JUDGMENT OR 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENT DISPENSED BY THE GODS. 

Chap. I. The Oracles, Divinations or Auguries, and Aruspicy 

of Heathenism 99 

II. The Euture Judgment, or Rewards and Punishment 

dispensed by the Gods 112 



BOOK II 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION IN ITS SYMBOLICAL 

DEVELOPMENT, 

Prologue 137 



CONTENTS. XV 



DIVISION I. 

THE ASTRONOMICAL GODS, OR PHYSIC O-ASTRONOM- 
ICAL THEOLOGY. 

SECTION I. 

THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION. 

Chap. I. Osiris and Isis, Typhon and Nephthys, . . .139 
Paragr. I. The Interpretation of the Myth, or- the 

Egyptian year 151 

II. The Symbology of the Myth . . . 159 
Chap. II. The Concluding Remarks on the Personification and 
Symbology of the Egyptian year, considered in 
its Sideral and Agrarian Attributes . . .169 

Paragr. I. Osiris 170 

II. Hercules 174 

HI. Typhon 178 

Chap. HI. The Egyptian Theory of the World, and the Wor- 

sbip of Sacred Animals, or Hiero-Zoolatry . 182 

Paragr. I. Their Theory of the World . . 182 
II. The Worship of Sacred Animals, or 

Hiero-Zoolatry 185 

SECTION n. 

THE COSMOGONY AND THEOLOGY OF THE HINDOOS. 

Chap. I. The Cosmogony of the Hindoos . . . .193 
II. The Theology of the Hindoos . . . . 198 

SECTION m. 

THE RELIGIOUS CREED OF THE SCANDINAVIANS. 

Chap. I. The Scandinavian Deities. Prologue . . .211 

H. The Scandinavian Gods in their Planetary Relations 

to Mankind 225 

HI. The Scandinavian Cosmogony .... 228 

IV. Asgard and the Golden Age 235 

V. The Providence of the Scandinavian Gods . . 238 
VI. The Yggdrasill, the Mundane Snake, the World- 
mountains, and the Pillars and Pyramids of the 

World 241 



XVI CONTENTS. 

Paragr. I. The Yggdrasill 241 

II. The Yggdrasill and Nidhogg illustrated 
from the doctrines of the Grecian and 
Oriental Mythologies of the Mundane 
Tree, the Mundane Snake, together with 
an investigation of the World-moun- 
tains, and the Pillars and Pyramids of 
the World 251 



DIVISION II. 

THE GODS O-F THE HEATHENS, REPRESENTED IN MYTH- 
OLOGY AS THE MUNDANE SOURCES AND DISPENSERS 
OF LIGHT AND FIRE, AND CONSIDERED IN RELATION 
TO THEIR PNEUMATICAL ATTRIBUTES, OR THEIR 
SPIRITUALITY, AND ETHICAL AND INTELLECTUAL 
CHARACTER. 

' SECTION I. 

THE MITHRAS AND MITRA OF THE PERSIANS 274 

SECTION II. 

VESTA, HER FIRES AND PRIESTESSES ; ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 

Chap. I. Vesta, her Pires and Priestesses 290 

II. Zeus, or Jupiter 301 

Paragr. I. The Zeus, or Jupiter of the People . . 303 

II. The Zeus, or Jupiter of the Priests . 315 



DIVISION III. 
The Olympic Games 335 



DIVISION IV. 
The Eleusinian Mysteries .... 352 



BOOK I. 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

IN ITS 

POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 



SECTION I. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS IN THE HUMAN 

MIND, AND THE LIGHT IN WHICH RELIGIOUS 

OBJECTS ARE CONTEMPLATED. 



CHAPTER I. 

RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

One of the most remarkable phenomena of the 
human race, is the universal existence of religious 
ideas : a belief in something supernatural and divine, 
and a worship corresponding to it. The account of 
historians and travellers, purporting that they have 
met with savage tribes or barbaric nations, who 
were utterly destitute of all traces of religion, must 
be regarded as the result of superficial observation 
or hasty inference, and which cannot, therefore, be 
admitted as an exception to the general rule, until 
it shall have been corroborated by future investi- 
gations. To what cause, then, is this decided relig- 
ious element, this predominant creed of mankind, 
in a sacred principle or spiritual power that is every- 
where pervading and controlling the universe, to be 
ascribed? Shallow theorists are not wanting, who 
have advanced the puerile doctrine that the heathen 
religion owes its origin and influence in human 

(3) 



4 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

society to the artful devices of selfish and heartless 
demagogues, who, it seems, were as skilful and un- 
scrupulous in the manufacture of the gods, as they 
were successful in making slaves of their unsuspect- 
ing dupes. " Not thus," cries the self-conceited infi- 
del ; " priestcraft has practised its juggling tricks, and 
the world has been made to believe a lie, and to 
worship a phantom ! " Such hypotheses are too evi- 
dently ludicrous to require a labored refutation, and 
I need but state that though religion may be recog- 
nized and developed, it can never be produced or 
originated by man ; while, at the same time, it is 
just as natural for him to be impressed with relig- 
ious convictions, as it is to think or to utter articu- 
late sounds. Carlyle, having remarked that quackery 
and imposition have indeed fearfully abounded in 
the latter and corrupt period of the pagan religion, 
adds : " But quackery was never the originating 
influence in such things ; it was not the health and 
life of such things, but their disease, the sure pre- 
cursor of their being about to die! Let us never 
forget this. It seems to me a most mournful hy- 
pothesis, that of quackery giving birth to any faith, 
even in savage men. Quackery gives birth to noth- 
ing; gives death to all," etc. Some, on the other 
hand, have not hesitated to assert a supernatural 
revelation as the primeval source of all the diversi- 
fied forms of religion that have prevailed upon the 
earth ; and that the knowledge of such a relation, 
communicated to an individual, or a people, has 
been gradually and successively transmitted to the 
whole human family, through the ductile and ever- 
widening channel of tradition. This opinion, though 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. O 

supported by an array of respectable names, is un- 
tenable, because it is destitute of the least historical 
basis ; and because, also, the Apostle Paul, whose 
authority in a question of this kind no one will pre- 
sume to dispute, lays down the following axiom in 
direct contradiction to the theory of a revelation 
antecedent to a religious manifestation among man- 
kind : " For," says the inspired minister of the Son 
of God, " when the Gentiles, who have not the law, 
do by nature the things contained in the law, these, 
having not the law, are a law unto themselves." In 
a more extended sense, religion may be properly con- 
sidered as the result of supernatural endowment, 
inasmuch as our development towards perfection, in 
which the religious element forms an integral and 
essential part, is a revelation, of which the fertile 
germ was originally implanted in the human breast 
by the Creator : this is a standing, an innate, and a 
growing revelation, responding to the apocalypse of 
God in nature, and manifesting itself among all 
men in all ages. It is the revelation to which the 
sacred writer, already referred to, thus adverts in his 
epistle to the Romans : " For the wrath of God is 
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in un- 
righteousness, because that which may be known of 
God is manifested in them ; for God hath showed it 
unto them ; for the invisible things of him from the 
creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
stood by the things that are made, even his eternal 
power and Godhead, so that they are without ex- 
cuse," etc. Here we have a proof of the revelation 
of God in nature, adapted to the religious faculties 
1* 



b THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

of man, stamped upon his soul by the Deity, and 
designed to be the recipient organs of divine com- 
munications, through the laws and phenomena of 
the external world ; and it is thus that man ascends 
" through nature up to nature's God." It is in this 
manner that nature becomes the oracle of God, and 
that her ceaseless and constantly augmenting in- 
structions, gradually impress a more noble and per- 
fect image of the Creator upon the soul : a process 
of human development which is the common birth- 
right of our race. Of this apocalypse of the Su- 
preme Being to mankind, through the medium of 
his handiworks, Pope thus speaks in the following 
pithy and elegant stanza : — 

" Nor think, in nature's state they blindly trod ; 
The state of nature was the reign of God." 

Hence the incipient part of religion, or religion con- 
sidered genetically, is to be imputed to nature, and, 
of course, to God, its omnipotent and adorable 
author ; but viewed in its subjective form, or as the 
fruit of human spontaneity, religion owes its reflex 
origin, its practically more estimable part, to the re- 
productive energies of the human mind. No one 
who has any knowledge of the subject, will deny 
that religion is as materially affected by climate and 
the genius of nations, as language or civil institu- 
tions. Nor can we overlook the modifying and con- 
trolling influences which different degrees of civiliza- 
tion, the character of the soil, the quality of the 
food, and the style of dress; the amusements and 
political relations ; the state of education and of the 
arts ; a warlike spirit, or the cultivation of peace and 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 7 

the enjoyment of domestic tranquillity ; an idle, 
erratic life, or the steady and peaceful prosecution 
of productive industry, must exercise over the nature, 
the tendency, and the importance of the religious 
ideas, which distinguish the individual or the nation. 
" Hence the attempt," remarks Kaiser, in his bib- 
lische Theologie, " everywhere to find the same my- 
thological divinities, would be futile, and no less 
incongruous than if one should refer the epic poems 
of Homer and Virgil, relating to Troy, to the Jericho 
of the Jews, or the Avaris of the Egyptians." A 
question of some interest is the inquiry, What 
causes, objectively- considered, mainly excite the 
religious faculties of the soul, and inspire acts of 
devotion ? Timor fecit deos, is an adage of classic 
celebrity, yet it must be received with some qualifi- 
cation ; for though the terrible manifestations of 
nature, as thunder and lightning, earthquakes, tem- 
pests, etc., impress the untutored mind with senti- 
ments of the most intense alarm and anxiety, and 
suggest to it the necessity or the propriety of a pro- 
pitiatory offering to the offended or destructive god, 
they are by no means the only exciters of the relig- 
ious principle, but constitute a mere, though impor- 
tant unit, in a series of causes resulting in the same 
great end. Such, for instance, are all those striking 
displays in the external world, which create wonder, 
surprise, or aversion; fill the soul with delight or 
gratitude ; overwhelm it with a sense of its insignifi- 
cance and helplessness ; carry conviction of guilt 
and danger to a slumbering conscience ; or excite a 
feeling of admiration for the romantic and the beau- 
tiful. All such, and similar outward causes, conspire 



8 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

to stimulate the soul into a genial sympathy ; to call 
forth in it the reflections and emotions which will 
insure its religious culture; and to bring it into a 
constantly increasing proximity to God. Viewed 
subjectively, we may enumerate among the religious 
susceptibilities of our race, the human character 
contemplated in its attribute of perfectibility; our 
various intellectual faculties and moral, sentiments ; 
the principle of self-preservation ; the desire of 
knowledge, and the use of language ; the social pro- 
pensity, and the natural and irrepressible instinct to 
be happy. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE LIGHT IN WHICH RELIGIOUS OBJECTS ARE 
CONTEMPLATED. 

The religious history of our race, uninfluenced by 
a direct revelation, bears very striking evidence to 
the fact that man, in the infancy of his mind, and 
the absence of a wholesome experience, is prone to 
contemplate most of the objects and phenomena of 
external nature, in the light of fetiches* a phrase 



* Kaiser, the author above designated, derives the term fetich 
from the Portuguese fetisso, an oracle or revelation of the gods, 
and makes it synonymous with fatum or fate, which is deduced 
from /an, to speak, and signifies an oracle,f as also the order and 

t Fatum est quod dii fentur. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. V 

which at once implies an idol and an oracle, and 
which denotes something that enchants or charms, 
not something that is enchanted or charmed, as is 
sometimes erroneously taught, and which — forcibly 
attracting the attention, inspires man with senti- 
ments of religious awe, while it suggests to him the 
propriety of a suitable homage ; and therefore the 
part which he acts in this sacred drama, may like- 
wise be denominated a fascination or charm. For 
his childish theory of physical nature, plainly pre- 
mises an extraordinary reciprocal influence between 
the laws and manifestations of the external world 
and himself. The objects and phenomena of nature 
being generally regarded by him, not only as ani- 
mate and sentient, but also as endowed with thought, 
passion, and the gift of speech ; and as being either 
of a beneficent or of a hostile character. According 
to his unpractised eyes, the visible universe resem- 
bles, to some extent, at least, the human microcosm. 
Thus, the stars are the eyes of heaven, or the god 
Uranus, and while darkness shrouds the earth, they 
act the part, of sentries in the celestial dome, and 

series of causes observable in the universe, and which are com- 
monly called the course of nature. Hence, fetich, fate, and 
fairy = an enchantress, are correlative terms.* When the gods 
are represented in pagan mythology as subject to fate, the fact is 
to be regarded as a great and beautiful truth, as will appear more 
fully hereafter ; for being virtually intended as the mere symbols 
of the manifestations of the divine attributes and character, as dis- 
played in the visible world, they are of course subject to those laws 
which God has seen fit to impose both upon himself and upon 
every part of the vast universe. 

* The Latin fabula or fable, is also a branch of this family of words. 



10 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

keenly survey the actions of mankind. Lamps, too, 
have been recognized in them, which, it is presumed, 
are lighted up in the evening, and extinguished at 
the approach of day. The moon has apparently a 
human physiognomy; is a female deity, and named 
Luna. She is believed to be in a pleasant humor as 
long as she presents her lustrous face towards the 
earth, but when she veils it under an eclipse, she is 
angry at her votaries, and they have reason to dread 
her wrath while she is unpropitiated. 

Columbus and his crew being no longer supplied 
with food by the natives as heretofore, and threat- 
ened with starvation, the wily discoverer of a new 
world concerted his measures in accordance with 
this infantine faith, and, announcing to the simple 
aborigines of Santa Gloria the approaching eclipse 
of the moon, represented this phenomenon as the 
symbol of the severe indignation which the God of 
the Spaniards felt against them, on account of their 
refusal to furnish the invaders of their country, and 
the despoilers of their liberty, with the necessaries 
of life. The artifice had its desired effect, and so 
great was the consternation of the poor Indians 
when the predicted lunar obscuration took place, 
that they brought provisions in the greatest abun- 
dance, from all parts of the country to the treacher- 
ous strangers, of whose celestial origin they had but 
recently had some well founded doubts, praying only 
that their dutiful behavior might merit the forgive- 
ness of the offended Divinity. 

Beside these instances in point, I may further re- 
mark, in illustration of this topic, that the wind 
moans or howls ; the stream leaps or runs ; the tree 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 11 

nods or beckons ; the rains arc tears, which heaven, 
in sorrow or in anger, sheds upon the earth ; and the 
fantastic cloud-forms are so many ghostly warriors, 
ominously hovering over the human domicil. Be- 
sides, the fire bites: its flames are tongues, which — 
like the serpent-locks of Medusa — encircle and de- 
vour their victim. Hail is the algid missile of some 
shaggy or sullen frost-king, the Joetun Rime, for. 
example, in Scandinavian mythology. The earth is 
a mother, producing and nourishing an innumerable 
progeny, and hence called Ceres, or Alma Nostra. 
Here we find not only impersonation, but also 
apotheosis ; and the reason is, that man, more sen- 
tient than rational, is restricted in the unfolding pro- 
cess of his inner life, to the intercourse with the 
objects of sense, unable as yet to rise to abstract 
ideas. " You remember," writes the author On 
Heroes, Hero -Worship and the Heroic in History, 
" that fancy of Aristotle's, of a man who had grown 
to maturity in some dark distance, and was brought, 
on a sudden, into the upper air to see the sun rise. 
What would his wonder be," says the philosopher, 
" his rapt astonishment at the sight we daily witness 
with indifference! With the free, open sense of a 
child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole 
heart would be kindled by that sight, he would dis- 
cern it well to be godlike, his soul would fall down 
in worship before it. Now, just such a childlike 
greatness was in the primitive nations. The first 
Pagan Thinker among rude men, the first man that 
began to think, was precisely the child-man of Aris- 
totle. Simple, open as a child, yet with the depth 



12 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

and strength of a man. Nature had, as yet, no 
name to him ; he had not yet united under a name 
the infinite variety of sights, sounds, shapes, and 
motions, which we now collectively name universe, 
nature, or the like, and so with a name dismiss it 
from us. To the wild, deep-hearted man, all was yet 
new, unveiled under names or formulas ; it stood 
.naked, flashing in on him there, beautiful, awful, un- 
speakable. Nature was to this man, what to the 
Thinker and Prophet it forever is, preternatural. 
This green, flowery, rock-built earth, the trees, the 
mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas ; that great 
deep sea of azure that swims overhead ; the winds 
sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning 
itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail and 
rain : what is it ? Aye, what ? At bottom we do not 
yet know ; we can never know at all. It is not by 
our superior insight, that we escape the difficulty ; it 
is by our superior levity, our inattention, our want 
of insight. It is by not thinking that we cease to 
wonder at it. Hardened round us, incasing wholly 
every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, 
hearsays, mere words. We call that fire of the black 
thunder-cloud ' electricity,' and lecture learnedly about 
it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk : 
but ivhat is it ? What made it ? Whence comes 
it ? Whither goes it ? Science has done much for 
us ; but it is a poor science that would hide from us 
the great, deep, sacred infinitude of Nescience, 
whither we can never penetrate, on which all sci- 
ence swims as a mere superficial film. This world, 
after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle ; 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 13 

wonderful, inscrutable, magical, and. more to whom- 
soever will think of it." 

In the animal kingdom, especially, primeval man 
presumes he sees creatures endowed with thought 
and reflection similar to himself, and now and then 
imagines he discovers among them traces of a wis- 
dom more than human. An instance of this kind, 
mythology records under the name of the bird of 
Minerva, or the owl, which it may be supposed, 
attained to this ornithological preeminence, on ac- 
count of the superior gravity of its demeanor, and 
the deep and ominous tones in which it prognosti- 
cates the approaching meteorological changes in the 
atmosphere. The Indian apologizes to the bear, the 
heart of which he has pierced with the fatal arrow, 
on account of the deplorable necessity which com- 
pelled him to commit so cruel a deed, and expresses 
the fond hope that his sable victim will not cherish 
any ill-feelings towards his unfortunate slayer. The 
sonorous and often mournful lowing of the bull, is 
deemed significant of a divine presence, and the un- 
suspecting brute is suddenly promoted to the dignity 
of a fetich or an idol, while his name is piously 
enrolled in the list of the gods. The serpent, " more 
subtle," according to Moses, the Hebrew lawgiver, 
" than any beast of the field," has had a place from 
time immemorial in the motley pantheon of heathen- 
ism, and has been worshipped either for its benig- 
nant or its obnoxious qualities. The polished 
Greeks paid their homage to iEsculapius, under 
the form of a serpent, and the sacred snake of the 
negroes of Whida, owes its deification to the cir- 
cumstance that it appeared to them at the favorable 
2 



14 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

moment when they had gained a decisive victory 
over the people of Ardra.* 



* Captain Walter M. Gibson, the account of whose sufferings 
and romantic adventures among the Dutch and Malays, is still 
fresh in the recollection of the public, in an intensely interesting 
discourse before the American Geographical and Statistical Soci- 
ety, in the city of New York, and in the latter part of the preced- 
ing year, among other interesting statements, gave the following 
account of a most singular race of people residing in the south- 
eastern part of Sumatra, and known as the Orang Kooboos, or 
Brown Men of Sumatra. Osmin, an independent prince of the 
island, " called them," says the Captain, " tai orang, the ordure of 
men." He said that they were born as the lowest of slaves, and 
this had been the case for hundreds of generations, inasmuch as 
they were the descendants of slaves and burden-carriers of the 
army of Alexander. I found them generally called " hamba or 
hoodak Iskandar " — the slaves of Alexander. It is well known 
that numberless traditions of Alexander the Great, of "Dou'l 
Karnain," — "the two-horned," prevail throughout Sumatra, as 
well as in the Asiatic Continent, etc. He adds : "I was informed 
by a fellow-prisoner at Weltevreden, by one Captain Van Woor- 
den, who had been four years commanding at the small post of 
Lahat, in the interior of Sumatra, and who had had frequent op- 
portunities to observe the Orang Kooboos, both male and female, 
sit round a buluh batang, or species of bamboo, that attains to a 
great size, and would all in concert, as many as could, strike their 
heads repeatedly against the trunk of the tree, and utter some 
rude, grunting ejaculations ; this he observed took place when- 
ever any one, or all of the band got hurt, or received any special 
gratification, but mostly when injured. Now, it is well known 
that a large portion of the semi-civilized, semi-pagan Sumatrans, 
believe that in the enormous tufts of the buluh batang, as well as 
in the marringin tree, there exist widadiri doAvas and rakshashas, 
or good and evil supernatural beings ; and, what is remarka- 
ble, that throughout Sumatra, all the beings of their pagan 
mythology are of the feminine gender. I have heard described 
by their orang menyanyee, or pantunverse-singers, some most 



IX ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 15 

ravishing pictures of the widadiri, or good wood-nymphs of the 
buluh batang." * " Tlie Chingalas of Ceylon," writes the author 
of A Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with those of the 
Hindoos, etc., i: worship a tree called Bogaha, in the form of 
which they believe that Budda was manifested. — Ezourvedam, 
vol. ii. p. 47. Under this tree, they light lamps and place images. 
— Delaport's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 395." 

* New York Universe. 



SECTION II. 

THE TOPOGEAPHY OF EELIGIOUS OBJECTS, EEGAEDED 

AS DEIFIED, AND THE WORSHIP WHICH 

IS BESTOWED UPON THEM. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF RELIGIOUS OBJECTS, REGARDED 
AS DEIFIED. 

Wherever the universe displays its prolific empire, 
there may be found the religion and the gods of the 
heathen. Upon, above, or beneath the earth ; in 
the aerial and empyreal heavens ; on the snow-capt 
mountain, and in the fathomless abyss ; in the ver- 
dant glen, the shady grove, or the crystal fountain : 
all nature teems with divinities — the symbols of 
God made manifest in his works, and earth, heaven, 
and hades, are filled with the diversified and multi- 
tudinous objects of religious worship. On this in- 
teresting topic, Kaiser makes the following judicious 
remarks. Speaking of primeval man, whose vivid 
imagination reigns supreme among the faculties of 
his soul, he adds : " To conceive the surrounding 
objects of the world under the idea of a totality, he 
(io) 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 17 

is "incapable. Like a child he stares at the novel 
and strange sights which he beholds, and startles 
with surprise at the various sounds, which greet his 
ears in mystic strains. His mind is powerfully 
affected by the different phases which the earth as- 
sumes at each successive revolution of the seasons, 
and he contemplates with a mingled feeling of fear 
and wonder, the alternate vicissitudes of growth and 
decay, of life and death, to which her cherished 
offspring are doomed. Especially is his slumbering 
attention aroused by whatever is distinguished for 
its lustre, its velocity, its huge size, or prodigious 
strength. Hence the first piece of wood, a stone, 
an animal, a star, which impresses his imagination 
with the idea of the preternatural, and seems either 
to promise protection or to demand obedience, his 
excited and overwhelmed feelings prompt him to 
elevate to the rank of a god, or to recognize in it at 
least a fetich, animated by a spirit or demon, and 
proclaiming oracles to mankind." 

The gods, it may be observed here, are of different 
sexes, and stand related to each other according to 
the usual tables of consanguinity common among 
mortals. They, of course. " marry, and are given in 
marriage." Some of the celestial families, as may 
readily be supposed, are more powerful and influen- 
tial than others, precisely as is the case among men; 
for the gods are divided agreeably to their rank and 
dominion, into superior and inferior orders, and rise 
gradually in power and dignity from the diminutive 
Penates of the domestic hearth, or the black stone 
of the Arabs, to the lofty and severe majesty of the 
Olympian Jupiter. Not only every division, but 



18 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

often, even, every individual object in the visible 
creation, has had its presiding genius or reigning 
god; and therefore the religion of the heathen, in its 
more primitive form, is rather pantheistic than poly- 
theistic. In his mythological researches, as it ap- 
pears from his " Northern Antiquities," M. Mallet 
arrived at results which are strikingly cognate to the 
facts here laid down. "Each element," he writes, 
" was, according to the faith of primeval man, under 
the guidance of some being peculiar to it. The 
earth, the water, the fire, the air, the sun, moon, and 
stars, had each their respective divinity. The trees, 
forests, rivers, mountains, rocks, winds, thunder, and 
tempests, had the same ; and merited, on that score, 
a religious worship, which, at first, could not be 
directed to the visible object, but to the intelligence 
with which it was animated." 

The ancients, and especially the Athenians, paid 
particular attention to the winds, and offered them 
sacrifices, as to deities, under the name of Venti. 
The four principal winds were, the south-cast, or 
Eurus, represented as a young man flying with great 
impetuosity, and often appearing in a playsome and 
wanton humor; the south wind, or Auster, that ap- 
peared as an old man with gray hair, a gloomy coun- 
tenance, a head covered with clouds, a sable vesture, 
and dusky wings: he is the dispenser of rain, and 
of all heavy showers; the west wind, or Zephyrus, 
that is described as the mildest of all the windy dei- 
ties. He is young and gentle, and his lap is filled 
with vernal /lowers. He married the goddess Flora, 
with whom he is said to have enjoyed the most per- 
fect felicity. As to the north wind, or Boreas, fame 



IN ITS rOPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 19 

has stigmatized this divinity with the reproach to be 
invariably rough and chilly. He is the father of 
snow, hail, and tempests, and is always represented 
surrounded by impenetrable clouds. The other gods, 
Solanus, Africus, Corus, and Aquilo, who also be- 
longed to this category, were of inferior note, except 
iEolus, who was emphatically the storm-king, what- 
ever claim others might advance to this distinction. 

Perhaps it will puzzle the curious reader to under- 
stand how nearly every constituent part of the uni- 
verse could be separately or collectively deified, and 
yet at the same time, be under a foreign or superior 
deific influence. The solution of the problem is not 
difficult. The human mind ill its ascending strug- 
gles, gradually perceived the impropriety of ascrib- 
ing to an almost unlimited extent, the attributes and 
functions peculiar only to gods properly so called, to 
the various objects and powers of nature ; and it 
therefore wisely contented itself by assigning to 
many of them a secondary rank, or a mere passive 
agency, and placing them under the tutelar care and 
supervision of the superior powers. In this way 
only could they satisfactorily explain to themselves 
many of the wonderful and mysterious phenomena 
and influences, which everywhere struck their atten- 
tion with awe or astonishment, alarmed their fears, 
or filled their souls with hope and joy, and essen- 
tially affected their weal or woe. Instead, therefore, 
of continuing to confer divinity on the isolated tree, 
as had formerly been the practice, the collective for- 
est had a god impost upon it under the compre- 
hensive appellation of Pan : a bearded, horned, and 
cloven-footed divinity, in the similitude of the goat, 



20 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

and constituting the embryo of the future Jupiter 
and Pater-Deus of the Greeks and Romans ; and 
the ocean, instead of being any longer parcelled out 
among a multitude of supreme local regents, was 
intrusted to the powerful trident of Neptune, who 
was, however, chiefly recognized and adored by 
merchants and mariners, whose lives and fortunes 
were mainly confided to his vigilant care. If ever he 
did enjoy the enviable prerogative of absolute god- 

• head, the Egyptian apis ceased at last to be a deity 
in his own right, and became the mere vehicle and 
repository of divinity. Ultimately he figured no 
longer even in this perhaps humiliating capacity, 
and yet his mythological worth and significance 
rather increased than diminished; for he was now 
the symbol of important physical facts as well as 
profound truths in natural theology. How su- 

- premely absurd is the idea advanced by some 
modern writers, whose bigotry and prejudices exer- 
cise a far more powerful sway over their minds than 
the love of truth and the interests of science, that 
the people of the Nile, in a high state of civilization, 
especially the priests and sages, renowned for their 
varied and profound wisdom, should have perpetrated 
the unparalleled stupidity of making a god of a 
creature inferior to the least of his worshippers ! 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 21 



CHAPTER II. 

THE "WORSHIP OF THE GODS. 

In the worship of the gods, during the primitive 
ages, mankind sought to present to them such 
gifts — in conjunction with their prayers, as were 
calculated to gratify the senses, and to create those 
pleasing emotions in the soul which they themselves 
derived from their enjoyment. Besides, the gods 
were at one time, and by the ignorant in every age, 
really supposed to need food and drink, at least to 
some extent, as well as their votaries. Moreover, if 
it was not good etiquette to appear before a person 
of high rank, especially in Oriental countries, with- 
out a suitable present, how could a worshipper of 
the immortal gods dare to enter into their august 
presence without some costly gifts as the testimo- 
nials of their good-will and unshaken devotion ? No 
doubt self-interest no less than motives of sincere 
attachment, occasionally suggested the propriety ol 
tendering an offering to the superior powers, in 
which case it was synonymous with a bribe, offered 
under the semblance of religious zeal. Nomades 
have always prized the firstlings of their flocks as the 
most desirable gifts for the gods, while hunters and 
fishermen offer to them some of the choicest speci- 
mens of the chase, or of the finny spoils of the 
stream, and the husbandman lays upon their altars 
various samples of the fruits of the earth, or tenders 
to them the savory morsels of a fatted beast. In- 



22 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

cense, too, as a grateful perfume to the olfactories of 
the immortal powers, was burned in honor of them ; 
and it is stated that at a single festival of the god 
Belus, in Babylon, one thousand pounds of the de- 
lightful drug were consumed in the luxurious service 
of that deity. Libations, likewise, formed a part of 
the sacrificial ritual, and no true worshipper pre- 
sumed to touch the cup with his lips before the pre- 
siding divinity had had his share. In the earliest 
ages, the gods, it may be supposed, got treated only 
to water, but it was not long before the shepherd 
could give them a draught of milk, and while the 
Greek and Roman deities enjoyed their nectar or 
their wine, Odin, the Scandinavian, sipped his beer 
in Valhalla. If we can rely upon a Grecian myth, 
the most ancient offerings were derived from the 
vegetable kingdom. Lycaon, the savage son of Pe- 
lasgus, and first king of Arcadia, polluted the altar 
of Zeus with the blood of a child ; but Cecrops, the 
Egyptian, directed cakes alone to be offered to this 
god at Athens. The greatest diversity, Both in the 
style and the expense of the sacrificial service, has 
distinguished the devotion or the resources of the 
heathen. While at one time some fruit, a cake, a 
small piece of aromatic gum, or a fragrant herb, was 
deemed sufficiently demonstrative of a pious zeal, at 
another, a hecatomb was considered necessary to 
illustrate the importance of the occasion, to satisfy 
the claim of the god, or to express the rank and wealth 
of the offerers. Even so sumptuous and honorable 
an offering was now and then despised as inadequate 
to do justice to the gods, or as too mean fully to dis- 
play the extraordinary piety of man, and a hundred 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 23 

lions, a hundred eagles, etc., were required to satisfy 
the lofty devotion of an emperor — sacrificium im- 
peratorium. There were also votive offerings and 
consecrated gifts — anathemata, which were hung or 
laid up in the temples of the gods. 

The Persian mode of paying homage to then dei- 
ties, confirmed by undeviating custom, " Is," writes 
Herodotus, according to the version of Beloe, "to 
sacrifice to them without altars or fire, libations, or 
instrumental music, garlands, or consecrated cakes ; 
but every individual, as he wishes to sacrifice to any 
particular divinity, conducts his victim to a place 
made clean for the purpose, and makes his invoca- 
tion or his prayers with a tiara enriched generally 
with myrtle. The supplicant is not permitted to 
implore blessings on himself alone ; his whole nation, 
and particularly his sovereign, have a claim to his 
prayers, himself being necessarily comprehended 
with the rest. He proceeds to divide his victim into 
several minute parts, which, when boiled, he places 
on the most delicate verdure he can find, giving the 
preference to trefoil. When things are thus pre- 
pared, one of the magi, without whose presence no 
sacrifice is deemed lawful, stands up and chants the 
primeval origin of the gods, which they suppose to 
have a sacred and mysterious influence. The wor- 
shipper, after this, takes with him, for his own use, 
such parts of the flesh as he thinks proper." 

The animal kingdom has always supplied large con- 
tributions to the banquets of the gods. The victim,* 

* " The beast to be sacrificed," says Keimett, in bis Koman 
Antiquities, " if it -was of tbe larger sort, used to be marked on 



24 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

which is often appropriately decorated for the sol- 
emn occasion, must be selected with scrupulous 
care ; for it is required to be free of all blemishes 
and diseases. Every thing being prepared, according 
to the Roman ritual, for example, it is led to the 
place of sacrifice, preceded by the officiating priest, 
clothed in a white robe free from spots and figures : 
white was a color in which the gods took especial 
delight. A libation of wine is then poured upon the 
altar, and a solemn invocation addressed to the deity. 
After this, the victim is usually slain, though some: 
times, it undergoes a previous consecration, techni- 
cally called immolatio, which consists, writes Ken- 
nett, " In the throwing of some sort of corn and 
frankincense, together with the mola, that is, bran or 
meal mixed with salt, upon the head of the beast. 
In the next place, the priest sprinkled wine between 
the horns ; a custom very often taken notice of by 
the poets," etc. 

From the following passage in Pope's Iliad of 
Homer, some idea may be formed of the sacrificial 
rites, as they were observed by the Greeks in the 
mytho- Trojan era: — 

" In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode ; 
Beneath the deck the destin'd victims stow'd : 
The sails they furl'd, they lash the mast aside, 
And dropt their anchors, and the pinnace tied. 



the horns with gold; if of the lesser sort, it was crowned with 
the leaves of that tree, which the deity was thought most to de- 
light in for whom the sacrifice was designed. And besides tlu-se, 
they wore the infuhc and vittse, a sort of white fillets, about their 
heads." 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 25 

Next on the shore their hecatomb they land ; 

Chryseis last descending on the strand. 

Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, 

Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane ; 

Where at his solemn altar, as the maid 

He gave to Chryses, thus, the hero said.: 

4 Hail, reverend priest ! to Phoebus' awful dome 

A suppliant I from great Atrides come : 

Unransom'd here receive the spotless fair ; 

Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare ; 

And may thy god who scatters darts around, 

Aton'd by sacrifice, desist to wound.' 

At this, the sire embrac'd the maid again, 

So sadly lost, so lately sought in A*ain. 

Then near the altar of the darting king, 

Dispos'd in rank their hecatomb they bring ; 

With water purify their hands, and take 

The sacred offering of the salted cake ; 

While thus with arms devoutly rais'd in air, 

And solemn voice, the priest directs his prayer.* 

■ God of the silver bow, thy ear incline, 

Whose power encircles Cilia the divine ; 

Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys, 

And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguish'd rays ! 

If, fir'd to vengeance at thy priest's request, 

Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest ; 

Once more attend ! avert the wasteful woe, 

And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow.' 

So Chryses prayed. Apollo heard his prayer : 

And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare ; 

Between their horns the salted barley threw, 

And, with their heads to Heaven, the victims slew : 

The limbs they sever from the enclosing hide ; 

The thighs, selected to the gods, divide : 

On these, in double cauls involv'd with art, 

The choicest morsels lay from every part. 

The priest himself before his altar stands, 

And burns the offering with his holy hands, 

Pours the black wine, and sees the flames aspire ; 



26 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

The youths with instruments surround the fire : 
The thighs, thus saerifieM, and entrails dress'd, 
Th' assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest : 
Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, 
Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. 
When now the rage of hunger was repress'd, 
With pure libations they conclude the feast ; 
The youths with wine the copious goblets crown'd, 
And, pleas'd, dispense the flowing bowls around ; 
With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, 
The preans lengthen'd till the sun descends : 
The Greeks, restor'd, the grateful notes prolong ; 
Apollo listens, and approves the song." 

The Father of History affirms that in Egypt it 
was deemed a capital offence to sacrifice a beast, 
which did not bear the impression of the seal of the 
superintending priest, because this mark was the 
legal attestation of its fitness for the sacrifice. It is 
likewise to be observed, that though every deity had 
some rites and institutions, which were peculiar to 
him ; yet some of the ritual laws were of a general 
character, and might with little or no modifications, 
be employed indiscriminately in the sacred service. 
The offerings were of different kinds, according to 
the ends which were designed to be accomplished by 
them, or the predominant feelings- which animated 
the soul of the worshipper. Thus there were t bank- 
offerings, and offerings of rejoicing, meat and fruit- 
offerings, peace-offerings, sin and burnt-offerings, etc. 
Burnt-offerings were entirely consumed upon the 
altar, and therefore the Greeks denominated them 
holocavsta. It may not be uninstructive, and it will 
certainly not be uninteresting, to hear again in this 
place the author just quoted, in his account of a 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 27 

sacrifice to Isis, the greatest of the Egyptian god- 
desses, which seems to premise no mean skill in the 
culinary art, nor an ordinary taste for symposial 
cheer, among the ancient builders of the pyramids. 
" After the previous ceremony of prayers," thus 
writes the indefatigable historian, " they sacrifice an 
ox : they then strip off the skin, and take out the in- 
testines, leaving the fat and the paunch ; they after- 
wards cut off the legs, the shoulders, the neck, and 
the extremities of the loin ; the rest of the body is 
stuffed with fine bread, honey, raisins, figs, frankin- 
cense, myrrh, and various aromaties; after this pro- 
cess they burn it, pouring on the flame a large 
quantity of oil: while the victim is burning, the 
spectators flagellate themselves, having fasted be- 
fore the ceremony ; the whole is completed by their 
feasting on the residue of the sacrifice." * The blood, 
too, of human victims — an instance of which we 
noticed above — occasionally stained the altars, and 
illustrated the virtues or appeased the wrath of the 
gods, and the Egyptians preferred, for this purpose, 
those whose misfortune it was to have red hair : the 
symbol, according to their creed, of Typhonian attri- 
butes. The rank, the sex, or the character of the 
deity, gave a peculiar coloring to his worship. Thus, 
goats, sheep, and white bulls, were the dainty viands 
in which Jupiter especially delighted; Juno was 
partial to the hawk, the goose, and particularly to 
the peacock, hence often distinguished as the Junonia 
avis, while the dittany, the poppy, and the lily, were 
her favorite flowers. To Apollo, the god of the 

* Beloe. 



28 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

silver-bow, the cock, the grasshopper, the wolf, the 
crow, the swan, the lamb, the olive, the laurel, the 
palm-tree, etc., were sacred. Venus modestly con- 
tented herself with the rose — the queen of flowers, 
the myrtle, and the apple, and while the dove and 
the sparrow graced her sacrificial rites, the fishes 
called aphya and lycostomus, served to give zest to 
her enjoyments, and variety to her feasts. The 
white poplar honored the puissant name of Her- 
cules ; and as to the jolly god Bacchus, the leaves of 
the vine and the ivy encircled his dizzy brow, while 
the magpie and the panther illustrated the terms of 
his divinity. According to Sonnerat's Voyages, 
Vichnou is the only Hindoo god to whom bloody 
sacrifices, consisting of cocks and kids, are offered. 
The Massageta, a great and powerful nation, whose 
territories, according to Herodotus, extended beyond 
the river Araxes to the extreme parts of the East, 
and who were esteemed by some to be a Scythian 
nation, sacrificed horses to the sun, their only deity, 
thinking it right to offer the swiftest of mortal ani- 
mals to the swiftest of immortal beings. Larcher, 
in reference to this equine sacrifice, in a note on 
this passage, thus adds : " This was a very ancient 
custom ; it was practised in Persia, in the time of 
Cyrus, and was probably anterior to that prince. 
Horses were sacrificed to Neptune and the deities 
of the rivers, being precipitated into the sea or into 
the rivers. Sextus Pompeius threw into the sea 
horses and live oxen, in honor of Neptune, whose 
son he professed to be." To Saturn, the god of lime, 
human victims were offered as the noblest produc- 
tions in sublunary time, or as some have errone- 



IX ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 29 

ously taught, because he delighted in human blood. 
While the ancient Mexicans, who were fierce and 
warlike to a high degree, deemed human sacrifices to 
be the most acceptable gifts to the gods, their mild 
and humane neighbors of the South, the Peru- 
vians, never stained their altars with the blood of 
man, but offered to the sun, moon, and stars, espec- 
ially to the god of day as their chief divinity, and 
the resplendent sire of the Inca rate, " A part of 
those productions,'' writes Doctor Robertson, " which 
his genial warmth had called forth from the bosom 
of the earth, and reared to maturity. They sacri- 
ficed as an oblation of gratitude, some of the ani- 
mals which were indebted to his influence for nour- 
ishment. They presented to him choice specimens 
of those works' of ingenuity which his light had 
guided the hand of man in forming. But the Incas 
never stained their altars with human blood, nor 
could they conceive that their beneficent father, the 
Sun, would be delighted with such horrid victims." 

Among the multifarious worship of the zealous 
heathens, must not be omitted a more ample descrip- 
tion of the votive offerings, which were gifts condi- 
tionally promised to the gods, under the solemn obli- 
gation of a vow. In consequence of such a vow, 
Jephthah, though a judge in Israel, immolated his 
daughter, an only child; and L. Furius Camillus 
was banished by the people of Rome, for distribut- 
ing, contrary to his vow, the spoils which his valor 
had won at Veii. Kennett, treating of the Roman 
games designated as the votivi, says : " They- were 
the effect of any vow made by the magistrates or 
generals, when they set forward on any expedition, 



30 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

to be performed in case they returned successful. 
These were sometimes occasioned by the advice of 
the Sibylline oracles, or of the soothsayers ; and 
many times proceeded purely from a principle of 
devotion and piety in the generals. Such particu- 
larly were the Ludi Magni, often mentioned in his- 
torians, especially by Livy. Thus, he informs us, 
that in the year of the city five hundred and thirty- 
six, Fabius Maximus, the dictator, to appease the 
anger of the gods, and to obtain success against the 
Carthaginian power, upon the direction of the Sibyl- 
line oracles, vowed the great games to Jupiter, with 
a prodigious sum to be expended at them ; besides 
three hundred oxen to be sacrificed to Jupiter, and 
several others to the rest of the deities. M. Acilius, 
the consul, did the same thing in the war against 
Antiochus. And we have some examples of these 
games being made quinquennial, or to return every 
five years. They were celebrated with Circensian 
sports four days together." * 

* The Circensian games were performed in the circus at Rome. 
They were dedicated to the god Consus, and were first instituted 
by Romulus at the rape of the Sabines. They were in imitation 
of the Olympian games, and by way of eminence were often 
called the great games. They were not appropriated to one par- 
ticular exhibition, but were equally celebrated for leaping, wrest- 
ling, throwing the quoit and javelin, races on foot as well as in 
chariots, and boxing. The celebration continued, as we have 
seen above, four days, beginning on the fifteenth of September. 
All games in general that were exhibited in the circus, were soon 
after called Circensian games. Some sea-fights and skirmishes, 
denominated naumachi by the Romans, were likewise performed 
in the circus.f As the god Consus presided over counsels, the 
t Vide ^Eneid of Virgil. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 31 

Beside animals and the usual offerings which they 
presented to their deities, Tacitus informs us that it 
was the custom of the ancient Germans, on stated 
days, to sacrifice human victims to Mercury, by 
whom we are to understand, says Murphy, in a note 
on this passage, and on the authority of Schedius, 
de Diis Germanis, Teutates ; a name which is cognate 
with Tuisko or Thuisko, who, according to some 
authors, was the god of justice among the Teutonic 
people, and apparently the same as the Tyr of the 
Scandinavians. 

In addition to the foregoing evidences of a diver- 
sified and prolific devotion, we may observe that 
splendid vestments, costly trinkets, the blood-stained 
trophies of war, and the first-born of some nations, 
were consecrated to deistic service. Nor were the 
mineral resources of the earth overlooked amid the 
endless modes and resources of heathen worship. 
Subjected to the plastic art of metallurgy, they were 
formed into crude or fair iconic forms, or converted 
into ritual paraphernalia, in honor or for the service 
of polytheism. Having related the partial success 
with which Croesus had met in his suit before the 
most celebrated oracles of his time, Herodotus adds : 
" Croesus, after these things, determined to conciliate 
the divinity of Delphi by a great and magnificent 
sacrifice. He offered up three thousand chosen vic- 
tims; and he collected a great number of couches 



festivals observed in his honor, were also known under the appel- 
lation of consualia, which was probably the most ancient by 
which they were known among the inhabitants of the Seven- 
Hills. 



32 . THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

decorated with gold and silver, many goblets of gold, 
and vests of purple ; all these he consumed together 
on one immense pile, thinking by these means to 
render the deity more auspicious to his hopes : he 
persuaded his subjects, also, to offer up in like man- 
ner the proper objects of sacrifice they respectively 
possessed. As, at the conclusion of the above cere- 
mony, a considerable quantity of gold had run 
together, he formed of it a number of tiles. The 
larger of these were six palms long, the smaller 
three ; but none of them were less than a palm in 
thickness, and they were one hundred and seventeen 
in number: four were of the purest gold, weighing 
each one talent and a half; the rest were of inferior 
quality, but of the weight of two talents. He con- 
structed also a lion of pure gold, which weighed ten 
talents. It was originally placed at the Delphian 
temple, on the above gold tiles ; but when this edi- 
fice was burned, it fell from its place, and now stands 
in the Corinthian treasury ; it lost, however, by the 
fire, three talents and a half of its former weight. 
Croesus, moreover, sent to Delphi two large cisterns, 
one of gold, and one" of silver : that of gold was 
placed on the right hand in the vestibule of the tem- 
ple ; the silver one on the left. These also were 
removed when the temple was consumed by fire : 
the golden goblet weighed eight talents and a half 
and twelve minas, and was afterwards placed in the 
Clazomenian treasury : that of silver is capable of 
holding six hundred amphorae ; it is placed at the 
entrance of the temple, and used by the inhabitants 
of Delphi in their Theophanian festival : they assert 
it to have been the work of Theodoras of Samos, to 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 33 

which opinion, as it is evidently the production of 
no mean artist, I am inclined to accede. The Corin- 
thian also possesses four silver casks, which were 
sent by Croesus, in addition to the above, to Delphi. 
His munificence did not yet cease : he presented also 
two basins, one of gold, another of silver. An in- 
scription on that of gold asserts it to have been the 
gift of the Lacedemonians ; but it is not true, for 
this also was the gift of Croesus. To gratify the 
Lacedemonians, a certain Delphian wrote this inscrip- 
tion : Although I am able, I do not think proper to 
disclose his name. The boy through whose hand 
the water flows, was given by the Lacedemonians ; 
the basins undoubtedly were not. Many other 
smaller presents accompanied these ; among which 
were silver dishes, and the figure of a woman in 
gold, three cubits high, who, according to the Del- 
phians, was the person who made the bread for the 
family of Croesus. The prince, besides all that we 
have enumerated, consecrated at Delphi his wife's 
necklace and girdles." 

From the preceding investigations, we learn that 
the offerings of the gods were almost as multifarious 
as the individual objects of nature, and that they de- 
manded extensive contributions from every depart- 
ment of the external world. Though the worship 
of the gods was often shrouded in the mien and 
weeds of mourning, when tears and lamentations at- 
tested a forlorn hope, or the dread of impending 
doom ; yet generally it was of a placid and cheerful 
character, and vocal and instrumental music, as also 
the dance and scenic representations, entered exten- 
sively among its -duties, or increased and elevated the 



34 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

tone of its pleasures, as well as the solemnity of its 
effects, and the significance of its expression. The 
sacred fire, too — the emblem of the sun and the 
type of purity, guarded by priests or vestal virgins, 
burned perpetually on many of the altars of anti- 
quity, and in the age of Zoroaster it was the only 
national symbol of public worship in the Persian 
empire. All offerings or expressions of homage ob- 
jectively considered, were intended either to supply 
absolute wants ; merely to gratify the senses ; or to 
swell the pomp, and magnify the name, of the deity. 
The metamorphoses of the gods : their birth, death, 
state of languishment, or greatest vigor and glory, 
which constituted a main feature and profound sig- 
nificance of their lives, were likewise celebrated with 
solemn rites and festive honors. Some of the gods, 
as those of the ancient Persians, had no temples, but 
were adored under the cerulean vault of heaven, es- 
pecially on the tops of mountains ; some, as those 
of the Arabians, had but one : the celebrated Caaba; 
and others, as those of Greece and Rome, Assyria, 
Hindostan, and Egypt, were honored with numerous 
and gorgeous structures.* The Capitolium at Rome, 
which was at once a temple and a citadel, may serve 

* The gods of the Germanic people were usually worshipped 
in woods and sacred groves, and in the age of Tacitus, they 
could boast of but one temple, the name of which was Tan tan ; 
for, says the Iloman historian, " There deities are not immured in 
temples." 

"We are told by antiquarians," writes Murphy on Tacitus, 
"that the word, Tanfan, was composed of tan, sylva, a wood, and 
fane, dominus, or lord. Amelot de la Houssaye says it was dedi- 
cated to the first cause of all, or the supreme being." 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 35 

to illustrate the concluding part of this sentence. 
This vast and stately edifice stood upon the Tar- 
peian rock. It was planned by Tarquinius Priscus, 
begun by Servius Tullius, finished by Tarquinius 
Superbus, and consecrated by the consul Horatius, 
after the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. 
The ample base of the capitol embraced four acres 
of ground; the front was embellished with three 
rows of pillars, and the other sides with two. The 
ascent to it from the ground, was by a hundred steps. 
The magnificence and riches of this temple, are al- 
most incredible. AlLthe consuls successively made 
donations to it, and Augustus bestowed upon it at 
one time two thousand pounds weight of gold. Its 
thresholds were of brass, and its roof of gold. It 
was adorned with vessels and shields of solid silver, 
with chariots of. gold, etc. It was in the capitol 
where the consuls and magistrates offered sacrifices 
when they firsirentered upon their offices; and there 
it was whither the triumphal processions of the 
Romans were always conducted as to the crowning 
climax of their glory. This noble structure, it is 
said, owes its name to an accident. When its foun- 
dation was sunk, a man's head, called Tolus, was 
found in the earth, and from this circumstance the 
hill was denominated the Capitolium — a capite Toll. 



SECTION III. 

SACRED PLACES AND RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 



CHAPTER I. 



SACRED PLACES 



According as the pursuits of mankind require 
fixed residences, like those of the agriculturist, or 
allow of a roving life, like that of the nomades, the 
places of divine worship are defined and permanent, 
or shifting and uncertain. The nomadic tribes carry 
with them in their pastural migrations, their idols, 
their victims, and their priests, whereas people of 
sedentary or agrarian vocations, make use of the 
same consecrated places from one generation to 
another. Warriors and mariners, though they may 
observe times and seasons, likewise adapt their devo- 
tional exercises to the places whither fate or duty 
may lead them. Natural curiosities often invest cer- 
tain localities with a mysterious sanctity, and point 
them out as fit fanes of the gods and of devotion ; 
as, the cave at Delphi; the grotto of Trophonius; 
the fountain at Dodona, which rose and fell at dif- 
ferent intervals of the day ; the Olympian fountain 

(36) 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 37 

on the banks of the Alpheus, which successively 
dried up or reappeared every alternate year, and in 
the vicinity of which jets of flame issued from the 
earth ; the awe-inspiring and sublime falls of Niag- 
ara, which once invited the visits and the homage of 
the remotest savages, inhabiting America's primeval 
forests ; the Indus and the Ganges, especially the 
latter, which, in the eyes and the faith of every poly- 
theistic Hindoo, is invested with a threefold sanc- 
tity. The Russians, also, ranked two holy rivers 
among the objects of their devotion, and the conse- 
crated localities of worship — the Dnieper, or Borys- 
thenes, and the Bug, or Bog. The former, particu- 
larly, was universally revered among those people, 
and in the holy city Kiev, or Kiew, situated on its 
right bank, nearly all the gods of the Slavic race 
were at one time assembled. In an island, at the 
distance of a four days' journey from its mouth, the 
inhabitants of Kiew, in their annual voyages to the 
Black Sea, in the month of June, offered their sacri- 
fices under a sacred oak. Indeed, among many of 
the ancients, certain trees were regarded as the pre- 
eminently sanctified media between the gods and 
mankind. 

The people of Syria, Samos, Athens, Dodona, Ar- 
cadia, Germany, etc., had their arborescent shrines ; 
and the gigantic palm-tree in the isle of Delos, daph- 
ne prologonos, was believed by its simple inhabi- 
tants to be the favorite production of the goddess 
Latona. Among the Scandinavians, a temple was 
sometimes distinguished by the name of Hag; as 
Baldur's Hag, Thor's Hag, etc., a term which is 
synonymous with the German Hain, a grove. It is 
4 



38 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

said that holy trees still exist among the northern 
Finnlanders. Trees, hills, and fountains were the 
symbols and the abodes of the gods among the an- 
cient Hessians, and they both rendered them homage 
and brought them offerings. An enormous oak, 
called Thor's oak, or arbor Jovis, was cut down by 
order of Winfred, the Apostle of the Germans, while 
the votaries of the god of thunder beheld the sacri- 
legious deed with dismay and abhorrence, fearing 
every moment that some dire convulsion of nature 
would take place, or hoping, at least, that signal ven- 
geance might be inflicted upon the head of the impi- 
ous missionary.* Mountains, the natural monuments 
of the Divine power and greatness, and which it was 
fondly presumed would bring man into a closer 
proximity with the immortal gods, figured conspicu- 
ously among the holy places of antiquity; as, the 
Borj in Persia, the Meru in India, the Amanus in 
Cilicia, the Olympus in Thessaly, the Ida in Troas 
and in Crete. The Germans had their Donner-Berg — 
Thor's mountain, and the Brocken — the mountain 

, * The gods of the ancient Prussians showed a decided predilec- 
tion both for the oak and the linden. The ground upon which they 
stood was holy ground, and called Romowe. Under their ample 
shade the principal gods of the Prussians were worshipped. The 
most celebrated oak was at Komowe, in the country of the Na- 
tanges. Its trunk was of an extraordinary size, and its branches 
so dense and diffusive, that neither rain nor snow could penetrate 
through them. It is affirmed that its foliage enjoyed an amaran- 
thine green, and that it afforded amulets to both man and beast* 
under the firm belief* of the former, at least, that thus employed. 
it would prove a sure preventive against, every species of evil. 
The Ilomans, too, were great admirers of this way of worship, 
and therefore had their Luci in most parts of the city. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 39 

of altars. That was the Olympus of the Franks ; 
this, of the Saxons. In the diocess of Oriwesi, in 
Finnland, is a high cape which bears the name of 
Erapyha, or very hoi//, where a square hearth of 
stones, which constituted a place of sacrifice, may 
still be seen. The central seat of Swedish idolatry 
was established at Upsal, in the peninsula of Upland. 
Lethra, now Leire, in the island of Zeeland, was the 
city of the gods among the Danes. Here was the 
holy place where the nation assembled to offer up 
their sacrifices, to prefer their prayers, and to receive 
the choicest blessings of the gods. In the Isle of 
Rugen, in the Baltic Sea, the Pomeranians and 
other neighboring tribes recognized the focal point 
of their gods and of their common devotion. While 
Rhetra, on the shores of the Baltic, contained the 
associated pantheon of the Scandinavians, the Finns, 
and their Slavic or Slavonic neighbors, the centre of 
the religious worship of the ancient Britons, was the 
Isle of Mona, or Anglesey, in the Irish sea. 

The only sacred structures appropriated to divine 
worship, of which some nations could boast, were 
rude altars made of large, flat stones ; while others, 
like the Celts in Britain, had their altars inclosed 
with circular rows of upright stones. These inclos- 
ures were designated by the terms Caer, Cor, and 
Cylch, which denote respectively a circle, and they 
constituted the first rudiments of temples. The 
smaller Cor had but one row of stones ; the larger 
three concentric rows : four such rows, it is said, con- 
stitute the highest number which has heretofore been 
discovered. It appears that three rows were the 
usual number, and that the top of the stones which 



40 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

composed them, was covered with an architrave, or 
a succession of large, flat stones, embracing and sus- 
taining the whole framework of the rude specimen 
of peristylic architecture.* 



CHAPTER II. 



RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 



Numerous and often splendid festivals formed one 
of the distinguishing traits of heathenism. Hence 
the people of antiquity observed almost universally 
lunar and solar, vernal and autumnal festivals ; seed- 
time and harvest festivals ; festivals commemorative 
of politico-national or provincial calamities or bless- 
ings ; and festivals which were dedicated to the 
metamorphoses, or life and death, suffering and glory 
of the gods. They were celebrated with sacred games, 
the music of the lyre and the flute, the choral dance, 
the hymn — epe, hiero — pleasure excursions and 
solemn processions, which were often accompanied 
by the images of the gods, and which were intended 
to honor or to gratify their celestial prototypes, as 
well as to be the mean» to avert an evil or to insure 



* The catacombs of Egypt, which in their more perfect form 
often approached the fair proportions of a temple, and the grotto- 
temples of Hindostan, seem to have furnished the prototype of 
the vast and gloomy style of the Gothic order of sacred archi- 
tecture. 



IX ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 41 

a blessing;* dramatic representations, in which the 
lives or the exploits of the deities were enacted by 
their devout votaries, both for their own edification 
and that of the delighted and sympathizing specta- 
tors : all these and similar modes of festive devotion,, 
constituted an important part of the ritual service of 
the polytheist. To this day the heathen chants his 
war-song, or shouts his paean of triumph, while in- 
strumental music and the dance complete the rhythm 
of his religio-poetic emotions or aspirations. The 
Greek festivals bore a decidedly cheerful character. 
Hence music and orchestic, masquerates, and scenic 
exhibitions of all kinds, generally accompanied them. 
Public and private sacrificial festivals were usually 
followed by festive entertainments. The ancient 
Greeks did not recline or lie, but sit at their relig- 
ious feasts, while they observed the strictest pro- 
priety in their demeanor and conversation ; for they 
firmly believed that the gods, though invisible to 
mortal eyes, were present at their sacred meals. The 
festive ceremonies of the Egyptians and the Romans, 
wore a more grave and mysterious air. The spright- 
ly, jouisant Greeks were struck with a mingled feel- 
ing of self-reproach and astonishment, when they 
beheld the childlike simplicity and profound piety — 
eusebeia, with which the earlier Romans observed 
their devotional acts. The intimate connection which 
the order of Roman priests called Epulones, had 
with the celebration of a public feast of the Romans, 



* The Greek divinities, for instance, of the age in ■which the 
fine arts flourished among the Hellenic people, were human beings 
graduated to the fairest and most perfect ideal-type of humanity. 
4* 



42 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

will serve in some measure to illustrate the nature 
of the sacred festivals of the heathens. " They had 
their name," writes Kennett, " from a custom which 
obtained among the Romans, in time of public dan- 
,ger, of making a sumptuous feast in their temples, 
to which they did, as it were, invite the deities them- 
selves ; for their statues were brought on rich beds, 
with their pulvinaria too, or pillows, and placed at 
the most honorable part of the table as the principal 
guests. These regalias they called epulce, or lectis- 
ternia ; the care of which belonged to the Epulones." 
The sacred games of antiquity, in which the his- 
tory and the character of the gods were faithfully 
delineated in the performances of the different actors 
in the festive scenes, may justly be regarded as the 
basis of the drama which, in its polytheistic stage of 
development, was of a decidedly religious character. 
Smith, in his " Festivals, Games, and Amusements," 
etc., communicates some facts relative to the Thes- 
pian art, which cannot fail to interest and instruct 
the reader, while they add another proof of the all- 
pervading influence of religion upon the lives and 
amusements of the ancients. " When the per- 
formances were concluded," writes this author, "dif- 
ferent bodies of magistrates ascended the stage, and 
made libations on an altar consecrated to Bacchus, 
thus elevating the theatrical entertainments by im- 
pressing upon them a character of sanctity. The 
opening display was sometimes very beautiful and 
grand. Aged men, women, and children, are beheld 
prostrate near an altar imploring the protection of 
the gods and the aid of their sovereign. Youthful 
princes arrive in a hunting dress, and surrounded by 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 43 

their friends and their dogs, sing hymns in honor of 
Diana ; or a chariot appears, which brings in solemn 
pomp to the camp of the Greeks Clytemnestra, at- 
tended by her slaves, and holding the infant Orestes 
sleeping in her arms. Here Ulysses and Diomede 
enter by night the Trojan camp, through which they 
quickly spread alarm, the sentinels running together 
from all sides, crying, Stop ! stop ! kill ! kill ! There 
the Grecian soldiers, after the taking of Troy, appear 
on the roofs of the houses, and begin to reduce that 
celebrated city to ashes. At another time coffins are 
brought, containing the bodies of the chiefs who fell 
at the siege of Thebes ; their funerals are celebrated 
on the stage, and their widows express their grief in 
mournful songs. One of them, named Evadne, is 
seen on the top of a rock, at the foot of which is 
erected the funeral pile of Capaneus, her husband. 
She is habited in her richest ornaments ; and, deaf 
to the entreaties of her father and the cries of her 
companions, precipitates herself into the devouring 
flames. The marvellous, also, adds to the charm of 
the exhibition. Some god descends in dramatic 
machinery ; the shade of Polydorus bursts from the 
bosom of the earth ; the ghost of Achilles appears 
to the assembly of the .Greeks, and commands them 
to sacrifice the daughter of Priam; Helen ascends 
to the vault of heaven, where she is transformed into 
a constellation ; or Medea traverses the air in a car 
drawn by dragons." 

The following ritual observances, calculated to 
throw additional light upon the theme of our inves- 
tigations, deserve a notice in this chapter. Speaking 
of the sacrifices, games, and festivals sacred to Bac- 



44 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

chus, Tooke thus continues : " The sacrifices them- 
selves were various, and celebrated with different 
ceremonies, according to the variety of places and 
nations. They were celebrated on stated days of 
the year, with the greatest regard to religion, as it 
was then professed. Oscophoria were the first sacri- 
fices offered up to Bacchus : they were instituted by 
the Phoenicians, and when they were celebrated, the 
boys, carrying vine-leaves in their hands, went in 
ranks, praying from the temple of Bacchus to the 
chapel of Pallas. The Epilenaea were games cele- 
brated in the time of vintage, before the press for 
squeezing the grapes was invented. They contended 
with one another, in treading the grapes, who should 
soonest press out most must; and in the mean time 
they sung the praises of Bacchus, begging that the 
must might be sweet and good." The Apaturian 
festivals were likewise instituted in honor of the 
god of wine, and were principally observed by the 
Athenians : their praiseworthy aim was to illustrate 
how deplorably mankind are deceived and injured by 
the excessive use of the fermented juice of the grape. 



SECTION IV. 



PEIESTS AND IDOLS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE PRIESTS. 



It has been asserted by some authors, that the 
most ancient priests were jugglers, similar in charac- 
ter to the modern Shamans of Siberia, who are 
robed in leathern cloaks embellished with numerous 
little bells, during the exercise of their meretricious 
profession; or, like the fetich-jongleurs of some 
negro tribes, whose forehead is decorated with horns 
while they are engaged in the offices of superstition. 
It does not require much clairvoyance to perceive 
that this hypothesis is contrary to every idea of truth, 
as well as all the evidences of experience. For the 
incipient state of any art, pursuit, or species of 
knowledge, as well as of human existence, is simple, 
undisguised, sincere, true. Trickery and falsehood 
can never be the normal, but they may be, and often 
are the corrupt state of a profession or form of 
being : children, nn vitiated by their superiors, never 
dissemble, but adults are often adepts in the servile 

(45) 



46 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

vice, as the ancient Roman denominated the sin of 
lying! That the heterogeneous functions of priest, 
conjurer, or magician, were sometimes united in one 
person, I shall not presume to doubt in the face of 
sacred history. 

It was strictly in conformity with the spirit of 
heathenism, that mankind should honor and confide 
in persons who claimed and were believed to be, the 
mediators between the gods and themselves, and the 
only reliable as well as possible channel of a divine 
revelation or communication. Priests only — such 
was the childlike creed of the earlier ages, could 
bring an acceptable offering to the gods. They, 
alone, as the ministers and vicegerents of the celes- 
tial powers, durst venture into a closer proximity 
with them; while by fasting, prayer, frequent ablu- 
tions, and ascetic mortifications, they hoped to merit 
the distinction to which they aspired, and to deserve 
the confidence of their fellow-beings. The sacer- 
dotal profession was usually either hereditary or elec- 
tive. If the former was the case, families, castes, or 
tribes, officiated at the altars of the gods, as, for 
instance, the Potitii and the Pinarii among the 
Romans, the Brahmins among the Hindoos, and the 
Druids among the Celtic nations ; if the latter, cither 
the priests, the monarch, or the principal citizens, 
made the necessary appointments, which were valid 
only for a definite period, or continued in force dur- 
ing the life of the incumbent. 

While free institutions were cherished, and liberal 
opinions respected among the Greeks and Romans, 
the people generally supplied the vacancies which oc- 
curred in the priestly corps. The choice among the 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 47 

candidates was ordinarily decided by a proper regard 
to their virtues and social positions, or their public 
services ; sometimes, however, the weight and influ- 
ence of their families, or their arts and intrigues, 
determined a decision in their favor : Caesar made 
priest of Jupiter, M. Antonius, augur, etc. The 
high -priest, or pontifex maximvs, was placed at the 
head'of all the sacerdotal orders of his country. In 
dignity, he was seldom inferior to the reigning mon- 
arch, and in the weight of the social scale, often his 
superior. Indeed, the tutidus and the crown often 
covered the same head. Plutarch, in speaking of 
him, says : " He is the interpreter of all sacred rites, 
or rather a superintendent of religion, having the 
care not only of public sacrifices, but even of private 
rites and offerings, forbidding the people to depart 
from the stated ceremonies, and teaching them how 
to honor and propitiate the gods." * " The master 
or superintendent of the pontifices," writes Kennett, 
" was one of the most honorable offices in the com- 
monwealth. Numa, when he instituted the order, 
invested himself first with his dignity, as Plutarch 
informs us ; though Livy attributes it to another per- 
son of the same name. Festus's definition of this 
great priest is, Judex atque Arbiter rerum humanarum 
divinarumque, the Judge and Arbiter of divine and 
human affairs. Upon this account all the emperors, 
after the example of Julius Caesar and Augustus, 
either actually took upon them the office, or at least 
used the name. And even the Christian emperors, 
for some time, retained this in the ordinary enumera- 

* Lano-liornean translation. 



48 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

tion of their titles ; till the time of Gratian, who, as 
we learn from Zosimus, absolutely refused it. Poly- 
dore Virgil does not question but this was an infalli- 
ble omen of the authority which the bishop of Rome 
enjoys to this day, under the name of Pontifex Max- 
imus. The office of the pontifices, was to give judg- 
ment in all causes relating to religion ; to inquire 
into the lives and manners of the inferior priests, 
and to punish them if they saw occasion; to pre- 
scribe rules for public worship ; regulate the feasts, 
sacrifices, and all other sacred institutions. Tully, 
in his oration to them for his house, tells them, that 
the honor and safety of the commonwealth, the lib- 
erty of the people, the houses and fortunes of the 
citizens, and the very gods themselves, were all in- 
trusted to their care, and depended wholly on their 
wisdom and management. 

" There are but two accounts of the derivation of 
the name of the pontifices, and both very uncertain; 
either from pons and facer e ; because they first built 
the Sublician bridge in Rome, and had the care of its 
repair ; or from posse and facere, where facere must 
be interpreted to signify the same as offer re and saeri- 
ficare. The first of these is 1he most received opin- 
ion; and yet Plutarch himself hath called it absurd. 
At the first institution of them by Numa, the num- 
ber was confined to four, who were constantly chosen 
out of the nobility, till the year of the city four hun- 
dred and fifty-four, when five more were ordered to 
be added of the commons, at the same time that the 
augurs received the like addition. And as the 
augurs had a college, so the pontifices, too, were 
settled in such a body. And as Sylla afterwards 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 49 

added seven augurs, so he added as many Ponti- 
fices to the college ; the first eight bearing the name 
of Pontijlces majores, and the rest of minores" On 
the canonical observances, the dress, the diet, etc., of 
the Egyptian priests, Herodotus thus remarks : " The 
priests of the gods, who in other places wear their 
hair long, in Egypt wear it short. Every third day 
they shave every part of their bodies, to prevent ver- 
min or any species of impurity from adhering to 
those who are engaged in the service of the gods ; 
the priesthood is also confined to one particular 
mode of dress; they have one vest of linen, and 
their shoes are made of the byblus ; they wash them- 
selves in cold water twice in the course of the day, 
and as often in the night : it would indeed be diffi- 
cult to enumerate their religious ceremonies, all of 
which they practise with" superstitious exactness. 
The sacred ministers possess, in return, many and 
great advantages : they are not obliged to consume 
any part of their domestic property ; each has a 
moiety of the sacred viands ready dressed assigned 
him, besides a large and daily allowance of beef and 
of geese ; they have also wine, but are not permit- 
ted to feed on fish. Beans are sown in no part of 
Egypt ; neither will the inhabitants eat them, either 
boiled or raw : the priests will not even look at this 
pulse, esteeming it exceedingly unclean.* Every 



* The bean was indigenous to Egypt, but it was neither culti- 
vated nor used as an article of food by the inhabitants ; for in the 
mythological system of the people of the Nile, as well as in that 
of other nations, it was regarded as a purely material or tellurian 
production, and employed as the botanical symbol of whatever is 

5 



50 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

god has several attendant priests, and one of supe- 
rior dignity, who presides over the rest ; when any one 
dies, he is succeeded by his son." * The sacerdotal 
vestments varied with the occasion, the rank of the 
wearer, and the character and greatness of the god, 
of whose ritual service they constituted a part. 
Pure white habits made of the byssus, black cloaks 
and purple tunics, respectively distinguished the 
Egyptian, the Mexican, and the Roman priests. A 
short tunic likewise invested the sacred persons of 
the austere and recluse priests of the Celts — the 
Druids, whose name is said to be derived from 
drus, an oak, because their habitations were in the 
woods. 

" It will be expected," writes the. author of the 
Antiquities of Rome, "that the habits of the Roman 
priests should be particularly described ; but we have 
no certain intelligence, only what concerned the 
chief of them, the Augurs, Flamens, and the Pon- 
tifices. The augurs wore the trabea, first dyed with 
scarlet and afterwards with purple. Rubenius takes 
the robe which Herod in derision put on our Saviour 
to have been of this nature, because St. Matthew 
calls it scarlet, and St. Luke purple. Cicero useth 
dibaphus — a garment twice dyed, for the augural 
robe. The proper robe of the flamens was the laena, 
a sort of purple chlamys, or almost a double gown, 
fastened about the neck with a buckle or clasp. It 



low and grovelling. It was of the earth and earthly throughout, 
and its inflating qualities were at least one of the proofs of this 
hypothesis ! — G. 
* Beloe. 



IX ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 51 

was interwoven curiously with gold, so as to appear 
very splendid and magnificent. The pontiffs had 
the honor of using the prwtexta; and so had the 
Epulones, as we ' learn, Livy, lib. 43. The priests 
were remarkable for modesty in apparel, and there- 
fore they made use only of the common purple, 
never affecting the more chargeable and splendid. 
Thus Cicero, Vestitus asper nostra hac purpura ple- 
beia ac pene fusca. He calls it our purple, because 
he himself was a member of the college of augurs. 
Servius, when he reckons up the several sorts of 
priests' caps, makes the galervs one of them, being 
composed of the skin of the beasts offered in sacrifice ; 
the other two being the apex, a stitched cap in the 
form of a helmet, with the addition of a little stick 
fixed on the top, and wound about with white wool, 
properly belonging to the Jiamines ; and the tutulus, 
a woollen turban, much like the former, proper to 
the high-priest. By the gahrus it is likely he 
means the albo-galerus, made of the skin of a white 
beast offered in sacrifice, with the addition of some 
twigs taken from a wild olive-tree, and belonging 
only to Jupiter's flamen." A sad picture of sacer- 
dotal deterioration and languishment, or of the 
mournful and paltry remains of the pristine glory 
of the heathen church, gradually but certainly glid- 
ing into the oblivious wake of the past, yet feebly 
struggling in the cause of a superannuated and in- 
ane ecclesiastical system, and reluctantly passing 
from a stage upon which the gods and mankind 
once played so interesting and important a part, and 
which has for ages been supported and embellished 
by the faith, the devotion, the hope, ay, the pride, 



52 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the reason, and the glory of priests and kings, of 
heroes and statesmen, of poets and philosophers, 
will close this chapter, while it contrasts in imagina- 
tion the disease and deformity of the present, with 
the fresh life and splendid elegance of the departed 
heathenism of Greece and Rome, of Egypt and 
Carthage, of Persia and Phoenicia, and strikingly 
teaches the vicissitude to which even the best and 
the greatest institutions of human society are infal- 
libly doomed. 

Doctor Ward, of Serampore, in his "View of all 
Religions, and the Religious Ceremonies of all Na- 
tions at the present Day," thus portrays the condi- 
tion and character of the ecclesiastics of China: 
" The priesthood are in no great esteem among the 
people, being generally of low extraction. They 
have many different orders among them, which are 
distinguished by badges, color of habit, or the fash- 
ions of their caps. They are all obliged to celibacy 
while they continue in orders, and that is no longer 
than they please. But while they continue in orders, 
and should chance to be convicted of fornication, 
they must expiate their crimes with their lives ; 
except their high-priest, who is called Chiam, and he 
always keeps near the Emperor's person, and is in 
very great repute ; he has the liberty to marry, be- 
cause the high-priesthood must always continue in 
one family, as Aaron's did for a long while, but not 
half so long as it has in his family, who has kept up 
the custom above a thousand years successively, 
without the intrusion of interlopers. There are no 
persons of figure that care to have their children 
consecrated to serve at the altar, so that the priests 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 53 

who can have no issue of their own, are obliged to 
buy novices of such mean persons as necessity forces 
to sell their children ; and their study being in the 
large legends of their divinity, and not having the 
benefit of conversation with men of letters or pol- 
ity, they are generally ignorant of the affairs of the 
world, which makes them contemptible among so 
polite a people as the ingenious and conversable 
Chinese laity are. There preachers take some ap- 
ophthegms out of those great men's writings, for 
texts to comment and expatiate on.* They live very 
abstemiously, and rise early before day to pray. 
Every temple has a cloister or convent annexed to it, 
and has a certain stipend allowed by the emperor to 
support the priests and novices, but they get much 
more by letting lodgings to travellers, who generally 
lodge in their cells, than the emperor's allowance ; 
besides, they have a genteel way of begging from 
strangers, by bringing tea and sweetmeats to regale 
them." 

Of the Brahmins of the Hindoos, this author com- 
municates the following facts : " Among the bram- 
hun castes, there are several degrees or orders. That 
called Kooleenu is one indicating the highest merit. 
None could enter this order unless he was distin- 
guished by meekness, learning, good report, etc. At 
the present time, the highest seat of honor is yielded 
to a Kooleenu on all occasions, yet the supposed 
superiority of this order in natural or acquired tal- 

* The author refers to the Avritings of Confucius and Tansine, 
eminent hierophants and moral philosophers of the ancient Chi- 
nese. 

5* 



54 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

ents, nowhere exists. The name of the order, how- 
ever, still gives the bramhuns belonging to it, great 
superiority among the lower orders of this caste. 
Formerly the bramhuns were employed in austere de- 
votion and abstinence, their business being the wor- 
ship of the gods — then they were supported by 
kings and princes, and it seems did not employ their 
hands in worldly labor. At the present time only a 
few are supported in this way, most of them being 
obliged to enter into all kinds of worldly employ- 
ment for support ; many of them are beggars, some 
steal," etc. 



CHAPTER II. 



IDOLS. 



In the earliest ages of heathenism, artificial idols 
did not exist, and for the plain reason that no one 
possessed sufficient skill or means to make them. 
Larcher, in a note on Herodotus, having stated that 
the most ancient nations were not worshippers of 
images, adds : " Lucian tells us that the ancient 
Egyptians had no statues in the temples. Accord- 
ing to Eusebius, the Greeks were not worshippers of 
images before the time of Cecrops, who first of all 
erected statues to Minerva. And Plutarch tells us 
that Numa forbade the Romans to represent the 
deity under the form of a man or an animal ; and 
for seventy years this people had not in their temples 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 55 

any statue or painting of the deity." According to 
the Father of History, the ancient Persians had no 
images of the gods, and from Caesar it appears that 
the Germans had but few. Tacitus, speaking of the 
latter, says : " Their deities were not immured in 
temples, nor represented under any kind of resem- 
blance to the human form. To do either, were, in 
their opinion, to derogate from the majesty of supe- 
rior beings."* 

Idolatry, however, is of an ancient date. At first, 
many of the objects and phenomena of nature, en- 
dowed with striking properties, or distinguished for 
their remarkable appearances, were regarded as the 
media of preternatural influence or communication, 
and treated with religious veneration. A belief pre- 
vailed extensively among the ancients that a god 
now and then sent down his image from heaven to 
mankind. To this category of idols belonged the 
Ccetylia or meteoric stones, supposed to have fallen 
from the abode of the celestial powers, and therefore 
called heaven-stones. Brontia, or thunder-bolts, were 
also iconic representatives of the deities, sent to 
their credulous votaries. Mone affirms that the 
ancient Germans had not only their thunder-bolts, 
but likewise their rainboiv dishes ! Antiquity could 
boast of many holy stones ; as, the one at Pessinus, 
in Galatia, sacred to Cybele ; the one of the sun- 
god Heliogabalus, in Syria ; and the one at the tem- 
ple of Delphi. , 

The principal idol of the ancient Arabs, as it ap- 

* Murphy. 



56 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

pears from Jablonski's Pantheon JEgyptiorum, was 
an irregular square black stone,' four feet high and 
two feet broad, denominated Dysares. The Hin- 
doos, we are informed by Tavernier, commonly have 
in their pagodas a round stone, brought from the 
Ganges, which they worship as a god. They also 
pay homage to an idol called Nahadeo, which is a 
conic pillar of stone. In one of their temples visited 
by Pietro della Valle, the idols were two stones 
somewhat long, like the ancient termini or landmarks, 
and painted. " All these idols," writes this author, 
" are served, adored, perfumed, offered to, and washed 
every day, as for pleasure by the bramins, who assist 
at this service with much diligence." * Graven im- 
ages — zoanon, were the oldest kind of deistic repre- 
sentations among the Teutonic people. Among the 
Germans, Tacitus assures us, the figures of savage 
animals were employed as religious symbols. Rude 
as were some of the aborigines of America, histo- 
rians inform us that they had both painted and 
graven or sculptured images of their gods. Like 
the Germans and other polytheistic nations, " The 
Canadian Indians," says Charlevoix, " carry the 
symbolic figures of their gods, called Manitou, with 
them to battle, and would as soon forget their arms 
as their idols." f Judging from the ill-formed, un- 
couth idols of existing barbaric people; as, the 
New-Zealanders, the Kamschadales, the Bouraits, 



* Priestley's Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with 
those of the Hindoos, etc. 
| Murphy on Tacitus. 



IX ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 57 

etc., it is likely that the earliest iconic productions 
of art were a pale, or block of wood with a human 
head and face carved on it ; and a form deemed god- 
like, moulded in clay, and hardened in the fire or the 
sun, may be supposed to have been the first trial at 
statuary. Some awkward endeavors to paint de- 
istic symbols or likenesses, may have constituted a 
synchronic exercise of skill, or even preceded these 
incipient efforts of the plastic arts. Cast and sculp- 
tured representations of the gods, required a ma- 
turer knowledge and a longer practice before the 
graves and the temples of the deities could be peo- 
pled with their varied and more perfect forms by the 
theopoioi — god-makers, as the imago-artists have 
sometimes been denominated. In the earlier stages 
of religious development, many idols were not, strictly 
speaking, images, but mementos or insignia of a di- 
vine presence or influence in nature ; and even at a 
later period, they were symbols of some great truths 
in moral and physical science, rather than facsimiles 
of some ill or well defined divine originals : facts, 
which cannot but exercise a beneficial influence on 
our mythological researches. 

A description of some of the Hindoo images of 
the gods by Doctor Ward, will give us some idea 
of the iconology of those once renowned people. 
Brahma, Vichnou, and Siva, constitute the Hindoo 
trinity, and to their statues I shall first call the read- 
er's attention. " Brumha," writes this author, " may 
be properly noticed first, as he is called the creator 
and the grandfather of gods and men ; in the latter 
designation, he resembles Jupiter, in the lascivious- 
ness of his conduct, having betrayed a criminal pas- 



58 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

sion towards his own daughter.* Brumha's image is 
never worshipped, nor even made ;'■ bat the Chundu 
describes it as that of a red man with four faces. 
He is red, as a mark of his being full of the ruju 
goonu : he has four faces, to remind the worshippers 
that the vedas proceeded from his four mouths. In 
one hand he has a string of beads, to show that his 
power as creator was derived from his devotion : the 
pan of water in his left hand, denotes that all 
things sprang from water. This deity, thus preemi- 
nent, is yet entirely destitute of a temple and wor- 
shippers. The image of Vishnoo is that of a black 
man, with four arms, sitting on Gurooru, a creature 
half bird, half man, and holding in his hands the 
sacred shell, the chuckru, the lotus, and a club. His 
color, black, is that of the destroyer; which is in- 
tended to show that Shinu and he are one ; f he has 
four hands, as the representative of the male and 
female powers : the shell, blown on days of re- 
joicing, implies that Vishnoo is a friendly deity : the 
chuckru is to teach that he is wise to protect ; the 
lotus to remind the worshipper of the nature of final 
emancipation ; that, as the flower is raised from the 
muddy soil, and after rising by degrees from immer- 
sion in the waters, expands itself above the surface, 
to the admiration of all, so man is emancipated from 
the chains of human birth ; the club shows that he 

* This criminal passion of Brahma for his own daughter, is 
sheer nonsense, as it is a mere figurative expression, and signifies 
simply the creative energies of heaven and earth in harmonious 
union. — G. 

f Vichnou and Siva arc as much one as Jesus and the Holy 
Ghost, and no more. — G. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 59 

chastises the wicked. Gurooru is a portion of 
Shivu; his body represents the veda. Vishnoo is 
distinguished, as being the source of most of the 
Hindoo incarnations ; and he commands the worship 
of the greatest division of the Hindoo population. 
There are no temples nor festivals in honor of Vish- 
noo. He is called the Preserver; but the actions 
ascribed to him under this character, are referred to^ 
other forms and names. The Shalgramu, a stone^ 
is a form of Vishnoo. During four months of the 
year, all the forms of this god are laid to sleep. 
Siva, or Shivu, is seen with his Trisula, or trident, 
in one hand; and in another the Pasha, which is 
a rope 'for binding and strangling incorrigible offend- 
ers ; his two foremost hands, right and left, are in a 
position very common to several deities ; they are 
said to indicate an invitation to ask, and a promise 
to grant or protect. His third eye, pointing up and 
down, is seen in his forehead — his three eyes, prob- 
ably, denoting his view of the three divisions of 
time, past, present, and future. Serpents, emblems 
of immortality, form his ear-rings. His pendant 
collar is composed of human heads, and marks the 
extinction and succession of generations of mankind 
by time.* 

" The Indian ^Pluto — Yumu, is a dark green man, 
clothed in red, with inflamed eyes ; he sits upon a 
buffalo ; has a crown on his head, and holds in his 
right hand a club with which he drives out the soul 



* The Hindoo triad sit with their legs crossed under them, 
while their headgear is composed of a massive steeple-shaped 
crown, containing several convolvular stories. — G-. 



60 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

from the body, and punishes the wicked. This is 
the form of terror, as a king of the souls of the 
dead ; but he is also worshipped in a form less ter- 
rific, which he is said to assume when he passes a 
sentence of happiness on the meritorious. Beside 
this annual festival, he is worshipped on other occa- 
sions, and receives the homage of the Hindoos in 
their daily ablutions. There are several remarkable 
coincidences between Yumu and Pluto. Lukshmee, 
the goddess of fortune, is the wife of Vishnoo : she 
is said to have been produced at the churning of 
the sea, as Venus was said to be born of the froth 
of the sea : at her birth, all the gods were enamored 
with her. She is painted yellow, with a water-lily 
in her right hand ; in which form she is worshipped 
frequently by Hindoo women ; but no bloody sacri- 
fices are offered to her. The goddess of fecundity — 
Shusht'hee, is honored with six annual festivals, 
celebrated chiefly by females. Her image is that of 
a yellow woman, sitting on a cat, and nursing a 
child ; though, in general, a rough stone, painted on 
the top, and placed under a tree, "is the object of 
worship," etc. 

" In many instances," writes the author just quoted, 
" there is a similarity in the exterior forms of the re- 
ligion of Fo, and that of the Romish church. Upon 
the altars of the Chinese temples were placed be- 
hind a screen an image of Shin-moo, or the holy 
mother, sitting with a child in her arms, in an alcove, 
with rays of glory round her head, and tapers con- 
stantly burning before her." Finally, this writer thus 
remarks on the idols of the Bouraites, who are of 
Mongol origin, and reside in the western part of Si- 



IX ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 61 

beria and on the frontiers of China, in the govern- 
ment of Irkutzk : "The religion of the B our aits is a 
mixture of Lamaism and Shamaism. In their huts 
they have wooden idols, naked or clothed : others 
are of felt, tin, or lamb's skin ; and others again rude 
daubings with soot by the Shamans, who give them 
arbitrary names. The women are not allowed to 
approach, or to pass before them. The Bourait, 
when he goes out, or returns to his hut, bows to his 
idols, and this is almost the only daily mark of re- 
spect that he pays them. He annually celebrates 
two festivals in honor of them, and at these, men 
only have a right to be present.'* With these over- 
wrought, sometimes unaesthetic, or even puerile 
symbolical forms of the iconic art, I shall now com- 
pare a few specimens of the sacred plastic of the 
Greeks and Romans — the fairer and nobler ideal 
productions of a more correct and elegant artistic 
taste. Jupiter, the king and father of gods and men, 
is generally represented as a brawny divinity, with 
a stern countenance, and a copious beard, sitting up- 
on a throne of ivory and gold, under a rich canopy, 
holding thunderbolts in his right hand, just ready to 
be hurled at the rebellious- giants at his feet, and 
grasping with his left a sceptre made of cypress — 
the symbol of the eternity of his empire, because 
that wood is free from corruption. An eagle with 
expanded wings, is perched on the top of this type 
of regal power, or it stands at the feet of the tltun- 
derer. The god wears golden shoes, and an em- 
broidered cloak, adorned with various flowers and 
figures of -animals, the emblems of the diversified 
and multitudinous forms of creation. The image 

6 



62 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

of Juno, the queen of the gods, and sister and wife 
of Jupiter, was made of ivory and gold. In one 
hand the fair goddess holds a pomegranate, and in 
the other a golden sceptre, upon which a cuckoo is 
perching. A diadem decorates her head, while a 
throne is her chair of state. Peacocks, recommended 
by their gorgeous plumage, sit near her, and Iris dis- 
plays around her the brilliant colors of the rainbow. 
The statues of Apollo portray the god of the fine 
arts and of all elegant accomplishments, as a tall, 
beardless youth, with long hair, a graceful person, 
and a comely countenance. His faultless head is 
generally surrounded with beams of light, and en- 
circled with a laurel wreath. His person is robed 
in resplendent garments embroidered with gold, 
while he holds a bow and arrows in one hand, and 
a harp in the other. His symbolical drapery varies 
a little in some instances, and a shield and the 
graces enter into the iconic garniture of the god of 
the silver-bow. The image of the goddess Venus, is 
the last example which I shall adduce here in eluci- 
dation of the national peculiarities in the iconic art 
among the heathen. " Turn your eyes now to a 
sweet object," says Tooke, " and view that goddess 
in whose countenance the graces sit playing, and dis- 
cover ail her charms. You see a pleasantness, a 
mirth, and joy in every part of her face. Observe 
with what becoming pride she holds up her head 
and views herself, where she finds nothing but joys 
and soft delights. She is clothed with a purple 
mantle glittering with diamonds. By her side stand 
two Cupids, and round her are three Graces, and 
behind her follows the lovely, beautiful Adonis, who 



m ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 63 

holds up the goddess' train. The chariot in which 
she rides is made of ivory, finely carved, and beauti- 
fully painted and gilded. It is drawn by swans and 
doves, or swallows, as Venus directs when she 
pleases to ride. You will see her sometimes painted 
like a young virgin rising from the sea, and riding in 
a shell; at other times like a woman holding the 
shell in her hand, her head being crowned with roses. 
Sometimes her picture has a silver looking-glass in 
one hand, and on the feet are golden sandals and 
buckles. In the pictures of the Sicyonians, she 
holds a poppy in one hand, and an apple in the other, 
etc." 

The colors of the images of the gods were usually 
of symbolical import, and though symbology prop- 
erly belongs to the second part of this work, they 
seem to require a brief notice in this place, as they 
are a constituent element of iconology. According 
to Winckelmann, " On Allegory," Bacchus was clad 
in a red or scarlet robe, the emblem of wine, or as 
some suppose, of the victory which the jolly god 
achieved over mankind when he introduced among 
them many of the arts and comforts of life. Pan, 
Priapus, the Satyrs, etc., were likewise painted red, 
and Plutarch assures us that red was originally the 
prevailing color of the idols. Osiris — the personifi- 
cation of the solar year of the Egyptians — was rep- 
resented in a painting of vast dimensions, with a 
blue face, and blue arms and feet, and resting on a 
black ground : symbolical of the sun in its subterres- 
trial orbit. Black and blue also distinguished the 
portrait of the planetary god Saturn, and were typi- 
cal of the sun in Capricorn, or its southern declension 



64 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

to the zone of sable Ethiopia. As the king of the 
lower regions, Serapis was painted black among the 
Egyptians, while the image of Jupiter among the 
same people, was ash-grey or scarlet ; that of Mars a 
red stone, and Venus's dyed with the same color; 
that of Apollo shown in the lustrous hue of gold, and 
Mercury's was covered with the modest blue, etc. 
The natural color of the stones of which the images 
of the gods were formed, were often selected on ac- 
count of their allegorical significance. Thus that 
indefatigable traveller, Pausanias, informs us that the 
river-gods of the ancients were made altogether of 
white marble, and that only for the statue of the 
Nile, a black stone was chosen to denote the Ethi- 
opic origin of the fluviatile divinity: a Nilic bust 
in the Napoleon-museum confirms this statement. 
Agreeably to their cosmogony, the Hindoos selected 
the dark-blue color to typify water as the primordial 
element of creation. Hence this color also desig- 
nated Narajan, the mover of the primitive waters. 
According to Jones' Dissertations relating to Asia, a 
handsome image of this god wrought in blue mar- 
ble, might be seen at Catmandu, the principal city 
of Nepal, in a reclining attitude, and in the act of 
swimming. On the first of January, the Roman 
consul, clothed in a white toga, and mounted upon 
a white horse, rode up to the Capitol: it was in 
honor of Jupiter, wiio — as we learn from Pherecy- 
des, was adored there as the sun-god of the Romans, 
as also in commemoration of the victory of that 
deity over the giants, when the many-eyed and 
many-handed Briareus —winter, as the mischievous 
leader of the rebellious host, w T as himself most sig- 



IN ITS POPULAR. DEVELOPMENT. 65 

nally defeated. This consular ceremony presented 
the living image of the solar deity, imbued with the 
hue of light. Finally, Ceres was the black or the 
refulgent goddess, accordingly as she spent her time 
in the hadean or supernal regions ; and Vesta, as 
the earth, was green, while in her capacity of fire- 
goddess, the color of flame defined and illustrated 
her divinity. 



SECTION V. 

THE CLASSIFICATION AND RELATIVE ANTIQUITY OF THE 
GODS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CLASSIFICATION OP THE GODS. 

When we reflect that in the earlier periods of 
polytheism, the deities of antiquity amounted to an 
innumerable multitude ; that, according to the ample 
creed of the heathen, all the relations and actions of 
mankind as well as all the elements, the phenomena, 
and the energies of the universe, had their presiding 
divinities; and that Greece — in the exuberance of 
a lively imagination, or stimulated by a religious 
want still unsupplied, after having ransacked all 
nature for a new god without finding one, yet appre- 
hensive or desirous that one might still exist of 
whom they were ignorant, and who would probably 
avenge the neglect with which he was treated, or be 
willing to confer a blessing upon them heretofore 
unfelt and unknown, resolved to obviate so fatal a 
result, or to procure so great a good, and erected an 
altar to the unknown god, we have reason to despair 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 67 

of meeting with any thing like complete success in 
our efforts to arrange the numerous aspirants to our 
attention, according to their supposed rank and real 
merits.* 

From the graduated position which the deities 
occupied in the Pantheon at Rome, it appears that 
they were divided into six classes : the celestial, the 
terrestrial, the aquatic, the infernal, the minutii, or 
sememes, together with the miscellanei, and the ad- 
scriptitii with the indigetes.f The celestial deities 
possessed extraordinary authority, and their fame ex- 
celled that of all the rest. As their votaries believed 
them to be eminently employed in the government 
of the world, the worship which they bestowed upon 
them, was of the highest order. Jupiter, Apollo, 
Mercury, Bacchus, and Mars ; Juno, Minerva, Venus, 
Latona, and Aurora, are the significant names of 
these illustrious divinities. Superior in number, but 
inferior in rank and influence, to the preceding 'mem- 
bers of a common divine family, are the terrestrial 



* My remarks in the text, on the unknown god, are based on 
the generally received interpretations of the Scripture passage in 
which this god is noticed, but it is pretty clear to me, and the 
Apostle Paul confirms my convictions in the view which he takes 
of the subject, asserting the unknown god to be the God that 
made the world, and all things therein, etc., that the Greeks under- 
stood by this deity the absolutely Supreme Being, who, accord- 
ing to their altar-inscription, they modestly declare to be the 
unknown — the incomprehensible! Who among mortals, Chris- 
tian or pagan, does or can know him ? For the Christians even 
see but darkly, and as it were through a glass. 

f The meaning of semones is quasi semi-homines ; and the term 
indigetes is derived from in de and geniti — gods who are born in 
the same place where they are worshipped ; local deities. 



68 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

gods and goddesses, who are separated into two 
divisions, the one presiding over fields and cities, the 
other inhabiting the uncultivated country and the 
woods. The former is more especially distinguished 
by the cognomen terrestrial, while the epithet rural, 
defines the latter. That comprises Saturn, Janus, 
Vulcan, JEolus, Momus, Vesta, Cybele, Ceres, the 
Muses, and Themis ; this, in the male and female 
lines as laid down in the theogonic tables, Pan, Sil- 
vanus, Silenus, the Satyrs, the Fauns, Priapus, Aris- 
taeus, Terminus, Pales, Flora, Feronia, Pomona, 
the Nymphs, etc. Among the aquatic deities, 
Oceanus, Neptune, and Triton, the Sirens, Scylla, 
and Charybdis, deserve our attention, though they 
no longer claim our homage. The first in this brief 
list, was regarded in the primitive ages of heathen- 
ism, as the originator of all things, and therefore 
named the father, not only of all the seas and rivers, 
together with their finny inhabitants, but of the very 
gods themselves. To the care of the second, the 
dominion of the sea, and the safety of ships, as well 
as the lives and fortunes of the nautical world, were 
intrusted. Nor did rivers and fountains escape the 
vigilance and the guardianship of his three-tined 
sceptre. This god had a son — the above-named 
Triton, who seems to have inherited all the great 
qualities for which his parent has been so justly cele- 
brated, and in every way to liave been worthy of 
him. As the trumpeter of his father, h'e raised or 
calmed at pleasure, the boisterous billows of the 
deep. Among the rest of this maritime race, the 
Sirens, ill-formed as they were, prided themselves on 
account of their charms, to which they attracted the 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 69 

attention of unwary seafarers, through the enraptur- 
ing strains of their music. With their meretricious 
songs, especially, they enticed the ambitious, the 
voluptuous, or the covetous, to their destruction : be- 
ware of the allurements of sin, is the simple but 
expressive import of this myth ! The character of 
Scylla and Charybdis', is sufficiently illustrated in 
the fatal rock and world-renowned whirlpool, which 
have transmitted the memory of their terrific names 
and malignant deeds to posterity; and the lesson 
which they inculcate, is that lust and intemperate 
habits render our voyage through this world ex- 
tremely perilous. 

The plan of this work requires that a notice of the 
infernal gods, whose rank in the pantheon assigns to 
them a place here, should be reserved for a future 
occasion, when we shall speak of judgment to come. 
The subordinate deities, among whom are included 
the Penates, the Lares, the Genii, and those friendly 
and sociable divinities who exercise a benignant 
supervision over nuptials and infants, therefore await 
our description. 

The Penates were inferior deities among the 
Romans, who presided over various interests of the 
commonwealth. They bore the appellation of Pe- 
nates, because they were generally placed in pentis- 
sima aedium parte — in the innermost part of . the 
houses. The place where they stood was afterwards 
called Penetralia, and they themselves received the 
name of Penetrales.* According to the best authori- 
ties, the Penatean divinities were divided into three 



* Cicero De Na.tv.ra Deorum, asserts that the name imports 
every thing that man eats. 



70 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

orders, the first having the supervision of provinces 
and kingdoms ; the second, of cities, and the third, 
of houses and families. These comprise successively 
the Penates properly so called ; the gods of the coun- 
try ', or the " great gods ; " and the small gods. Macro- 
bius, in his Saturnalia, makes the Penates synony- 
mous with Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and Vesta, and 
defines them as the gods to whom we owe our lives 
and all our faculties ; but Macrobius flourished to- 
wards the close of the fourth and at the beginning 
of the fifth century of the Christian era, and his tes- 
timony on this subject can therefore be received as 
valid, only when it coincides with older authors, 
whose qualifications to decide a question of this 
kind, no one will presume to doubt. Virgil tells us, 
in the second book of the ^Eneid, that JEneas, upon 
the advice of Hector, carried with him from Troy, 
when he went forth from that devoted city to seek 
his fortune in other climes and on more hospitable 
shores, the Penates and the potent Vesta with her per- 
petual fire. This passage alone is sufficient to show 
that Vesta and the Penates are distinct divinities. 
Besides, the statues of the Penates were generally 
made of wax, ivory, silver, or earth, according to the 
affluence or the poverty of the worshipper, and the 
only offering which they received were wine, incense, 
and fruit, except on rare occasions, when lambs, sheep, 
goats, etc., were immolated on their altars : facts, 
which clearly assign to them relations and functions 
distinct from those of Jupiter and his compeers.* 
In the first ages of idolatry, the gods may have 

* " TimeBus, and from him Dionysius says," writes Tooke, " that 
these Penates had no proper shape or figure ; but were wooden 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 71 

been often confounded, or at least indistinctly classi- 
fied, and then a Jupiter, a Minerva, etc., and a 
Pen ate, may have passed for the same species of 
divinity ; but when iconology attained the rank and 
the precision. of a science, and every part of it be- 
came clothed with hieroglyphical significance, each 
deity that deserved the name, had his separate niche 
and ritual service, and from, that time metaphor and 
poetic license alone could now and then violate the 
established system. It was the business of the 
Lares, who were the twin sons of Mercury and the 
nymph Lara, to keep in safety the houses and streets 
of the citizens, and thus in some measure, to share 
the domestic functions of those Penates who were 
emphatically household gods. Of the Genii, we 
may observe that they were the guardians, overseers, 
and safe-keepers of men, from their cradles to their 
graves : the Junones stood in the same tutelar relation 
to women. They likewise carried their prayers to 
the gods, and made intercession in their behalf: they 
were the symbols of the generative powers in na- 
ture. The Greeks called the Genii demons. Every 
person had a good and an evil genius or demon 
allotted to him. The good genius that is given to 
every one at his birth, constantly incites him to the 
practice of virtue and piety ; whereas the bad one 
prompts him to all manner of vice and wickedness. 
The nuptial deities comprised some of the most 
eminent, as well as a number of the inferior divini- 



or brazen rods, shaped somewhat like trumpets. But it is also 
thought by others, that they had the shape of young men with 
spears, which they held apart from another." 



72 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

ties. Jupiter perfectus or adultus, Juno perfecta or 
adulta, Venus, Suada, and Diana, were so absolutely- 
necessary to all marriages, that none could lawfully 
be solemnized without them. Beside these, several 
inferior gods and goddesses were worshipped at all 
nuptial ceremonies. Jugatinus joined the bride and 
bridegroom together in the yoke of matrimony; 
Domiducus conducted the former into the house of 
the latter; Viriplaca reconciled husbands to their 
wives ; Manturna was invoked that the wife might 
never leave her husband, but in all the conditions of 
life abide with him, etc. Such was the nature of 
their functions, which made it their duty to see that 
every thing which appertained to married life was 
managed with a strict regard to propriety and equal 
justice. Their kinsmen and partial allies, who were 
charged with the supervision of infants — a task 
which included also children of riper years — inter- 
ested themselves in various ways, and it may be 
presumed, at a great cost of time and labor, in the 
welfare of the rising generation, from the perilous 
moments of their birth to the blithe and buoyant age 
of juvenility. Janus, Opis, Nascio, Cunia, Levana, 
beside numerous others, chiefly female divinities, 
figured in this pleasing but responsible vocation. In 
regard to the Dii Indigetes and Adscriptitii or the 
demi-gods and heroes ; as, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, 
Castor and Pollux, Perseus, iEsculapius, Prometheus, 
Atlas, Orpheus, in addition to a long list of congenial 
names and personages, who have played a prominent 
part upon the stage of human and deific life, it is 
only necessary to observe that they are the predomi- 
nant manifestations or personified attributes of the 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 73 

superior gods, as they are developed in the laws and 
phenomena of nature ; ay, nature itself in all its 
mutations of renovation and decay, of propitious and 
adverse influences, under the mystic guise of fable and 
allegory; and that their actions and passions, their 
deaths and resurrections, their beneficent labors and 
glorious deeds of heroism, or their subjugations under 
inimical powers, and deplorable state of imbecility, 
can only receive a thorough exposition as well as a 
just appreciation, from the symbolical theology of 
polytheism, to an acquaintance with which the reader 
may therefore expect, in due time, to be introduced.* 



CHAPTER II. 

THEIR RELATIVE ANTIQUITY. 

The comparative antiquity of the gods may be 
ascertained with some degree of accuracy, from the 
age in which the priests, as the natural and voluntary 
agents of the higher powers, are found to have been 
dedicated to their service, or as the artificial creations, 
who owe their origin, or at least their sanction, and 
characteristic peculiarities, either wholly or in part 

* In the construction of this chapter, I obtained essential aid 
from Tooke's " Pantheon of Heathen Gods and Illustrious Heroes," 
— an acknowledgment which I gratefully makes to the manes of 
the author. 

7 



74 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

to extraneous causes ; such as, the policy of civil 
rulers, the exigency of society, and the inventions or 
the embellishments of the poets. In the primeval 
ages of the world, priests as naturally sprang up 
among mankind as the gods themselves. No sooner 
did any one conceive the presence of a god, and 
express his religious sentiments in some outward act 
of devotion, than he performed the office and was 
entitled to the appellation of a priest ; and thus the 
foundation of the sacerdotal .profession was coeval 
with the first practical recognition of a divinity in 
nature. Divine worship is one of the most powerful 
means to develop the human mind, and to inspire it 
with the principles of virtue ; and it would, therefore, 
be difficult to conceive of what use the gods could 
possibly have been to the human race, if mankind 
either did not or could not acknowledge and adore 
them, and thus obtain the important end of religion 
— the amelioration and happiness of mortals. 

As to the iconic forms under which the gods have 
been represented in the plastic arts of polytheism, 
those divinities may be deemed to be the most 
ancient whose images proclaim a fetich origin : the 
uncouth offspring of a gross sensual experience of 
the undefined yet subduing material forces and mani- 
festations of the external world, unrefined by taste, 
or unimproved and unennobled by abstract reasoning. 
As the domiciliary relations of man are older than 
his political associations, so the domestic gods may 
be supposed to have existed prior to those who 
constituted the objects of municipal worship. And 
it is on the same principle, and for similar reasons, 
that those gods must be considered to have been 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 75 

originated in remoter antiquity, whose recognition by 
man has preceded the foundation of social institu- 
tions. It was then that each person found and 
served his god according to his means or his faith, 
without any studied plan or regard to prescription. 
However interesting the subject is which forms the 
theme of these investigations, it is involved in the 
dense mist of past ages, which have, in many in- 
stances, transmitted to posterity the records of insti- 
tutions, without any certain criterion by which to 
judge of the date at which they were founded, or of 
the people to whom they owed their existence, and I 
shall, therefore, not commit the folly to presume that 
I will be able so to execute my task as to leave ne 
room for vain regrets or solid improvements. 

" The most ancient order of priests," writes Ken- 
nett, "were the Luperci, sacred to Pan, the god of 
the country, and particularly of shepherds, whose 
flocks he guarded.* They had their name from the 
deity they attended on, called in Greek hikaios, from 
lukos, a wolf, in Latin lvpus,f because the chief 
employment of Pan was the driving away such beasts 
from the sheep that he protected," etc. These priests 



* In case the flocks and herds of the primitive Arcadians did 
not multiply and prosper according to their expectations, the 
images of the god Pan underwent the discipline of flagellation at 
the hands of the offended nomades : a behavior which clearly 
proves the rude manners and puerile faith of his self-interested 
worshippers. — G. 

f Plutarch derives the name of the Luperci from lupa, a she- 
wolf, and traces the origin of their institution to the fabulous lupa 
which suckled Romulus and Remus, but, as will presently appear, 
without a valid reason. — G. 



76 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

celebrated an annual festival, designated as the 
Lupercalia, in the month of February, in honor of 
the same sylvan deity, and which, according to Plu- 
tarch, was called the feast of wolves, and was of a 
lustral character. He adds that it claimed to be of 
great antiquity, and that it was the generally received 
opinion that the Arcadians, at the period of their 
immigration into Italy, under the conduct of Evander, 
introduced it among the natives.* The Arvales were 
twelve in number, and the terms of their institution 
required that they should celebrate the Ambarvalia^ 



* The horned and goatlike Pan is evidently the same as Jupi- 
ter- Amnion. Equally true is it that Pan-Lukos and Zeus, or 
Jupiter-Lycaus, are synonymous. In the second part of this work, 
where the lupercalia will be astronomically explained, further light 
will be thrown upon this subject. From the Theogony and Cos- 
mogony of Hesiod, we learn that the four oldest dynasties of gods 
were those of Chaos, the first that existed or was made — genelo, 
and the same in signification as Chasma, a hollow space or void ; 
Uranus, ethereal space, derived from aura, pure air — the animus 
of Chaos : it also means time, or ora, and hora, the hour ; Chronos 
or Saturn, time in its proper and more extensive acceptation ; and 
Zeus, Deus, or Dis, the same as Jupiter, the god of the year, of 
ether, and the lord of the atmosphere. Chaos, according to this 
cosmo-geogonic system, being the primeval god from whom all the 
male deities just mentioned emanated, it follows that the last in 
the series, as well as the first, must have essentially contained all 
the rest in his godhead, or that he is Chaos, Uranus, and Chronos, 
only under a modified and improved form. At this stage of deistic 
development, the theologians, the poets, and the hiero-artists, took 
a stand and concentrated all that is great and good in Zeus or 
Jupiter; and hence it is that this god is Pan, or Faunus, All; 
" the father of gods and men." To this day, Pan, in the Slavic 
language, denotes a lord, and fanum, in the Latin, is a temple of 
the gods — a Pan-theoi. 



IK ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 77 

festivals, the name of which is derived ab ambiendis 
arvis — going round the fields, and which consisted, 
beside a solemn sacrifice of a sow, a sheep, and a 
bull, to Ceres, in processions round the fields, in 
honor of the goddess of corn. The ambarvalia were 
twice repeated during the year, once in April, and 
again in July. It appears that during the proces- 
sions, the celebrants wore wreaths of oak-leaves, sing- 
ing hymns to Ceres, and entreating her to preserve 
their corn, and to grant them an abundant harvest, 
while a crown made of the ears of corn, and secured 
to its place by a white fillet, decked their brows at 
the sacrificial rites.* The antiquity of the Arvales is 
at least coequal with the foundation of Rome ; for 
Romulus in his own person, filled the first vacancy 
in the order composed of the sons of Acca Laurentia, 
who had the honor to be at once the nurse of a king 
and the mother and foundress of the Arvalean priest- 
hood. This venerable Roman matron being herself 
a priestess of Ceres, and a strict observer of the 
ambarvalian solemnities, before violence and intrigue, 
or the omen of buds, had conferred despotic power 
on Romulus, it is likely that the sacerdotal order 
designated by the appellation of her pious and ex- 
emplary sons, had existed under another name, or 
languished in anonymous obscurity, long anterior to 
the birth of the seven-hilled city, and that it is one 
of the oldest institutions of polytheism. 

The Flamines, whose cognomen is derived from 
their headdress, which, it appears, was a flame- 

* The probability is that the oak- wreath was worn in the spring, 
and the cereal crown in July — the season of ripe grain. 



78 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

colored turban, were at first only three in number, 
and distinguished respectively as the Flamen Dialis, 
Martialis, and Quirinalis. The first was sacred to 
Jupiter, and ranked as a person of the highest con- 
sequence in the commonwealth ; the second, to Mars ; 
and the third, to Romulus : the most powerful celes- 
tial triumvirate, and who, as Gibbon the historian 
has playfully remarked, " "Watched over the fate of 
Rome, and of the universe." To Numa the Sabine 
prince and pious successor of the arrogant Romulus, 
this famous order of priests was indebted for its 
origin. The three Flamen s thus defined were always 
chosen out of the nobility. " Several priests of the 
same order, though of inferior power and dignity," 
says Kennett, " were added in later times ; the whole 
number being generally computed at fifteen." 

As to the Salii, whose institution dates about the 
same time as that of their Flaminian brethren, they 
were the avowed guardians of the renowned Ancilia 
or twelve brazen shields, suspended in the temple of 
the belligerent Mars. They were denominated Salii, 
writes Plutarch, from the subsultive dance which they 
performed along the streets, when, in the month of 
March, they carried the sacred shields through the city 
which was twice destined to be the mistress of the 
world; but which has already been once signally 
despoiled of her fame and power, and now apparently 
trembles a second time on the verge of a profound 
humiliation. According to tradition, one of these 
shields, and the original and type of all the rest, fell- 
from heaven into the hands of Numa, whose exem- 
plary zeal in the cause of the gods and of religion 
was thus miraculously rewarded ; and the fair goddess 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 79 

Egeria assured her devout favorite that this wonder- 
ful shield had been sent by the immortal gods for the 
cure and the safety of the infant city, whose inhabi- 
tants just then suffered from the ravages of a most 
destructive pestilence.* On the Epulos — Epulones, 

* The assertion in the text, that the origin of the Salii dated 
nearly at the same time as that of the Flamines, has reference only 
to their introduction among the Romans. From Servius on the 
JEneid of Virgil, we learn that the people of the ancient cities of 
Tusculum and of the Tibur, had their Salii long before the 
Romans. Plutarch, in the Life of Numa, traces the Salii to a per- 
son of the name of Salius, a Samothracian, -whom JEneas carried 
"with him to Italy, where he instructed the youths of the country in 
the Pyrrhic dance. Others again derive the institution from Ar- 
cadia, or from Asia, and all the researches on the subject show 
that the Salian priesthood was founded in the primeval ages of 
heathenism. At Rome they had their temple on the Palatine hill ; 
there they exercised their sacred functions ; and hence they were 
surnamed the Palatini. Originally the Salian college amounted 
to the same number as that of the sacred shields committed to 
their care. They were attired in a variegated and embroidered 
robe, tunica picta. They usually wore a mitre or cap, called apex, 
which tapered to a sharp point, and resembled a helmet. On 
festival occasions, however, as it appears from the iEneid of Virgil, 
wreaths made of poplar-leaves decked their saintly brows. Their 
services were dedicated to Mars, considered especially as liars 
Gradivus — a gradiendo in bella : a martial god, who rushes into 
battle with hasty and determined steps. The festival of the stern 
god of war was celebrated in the Campus Martins, on the first day 
of March, on which commenced the year of the old Romans. It 
was then that the earth began to be covered with verdure, and 
when their warriors and their steeds could once more safely 
encamp under the sky of swing Italg ; that the Salii, in honor of 
their god and illustrious heroes, marched in procession, clashed 
and brandished their ancilia, and performed their war-dance with 
martial song and frantic mien. The burden of their hymns were 
the praises of the immortal gods, especially their patron deity, and 



80 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

according to the author of the " Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire," devolved the enviable prerog- 
ative of preparing the table of the gods;* of regu- 
lating the ceremonies of their annual festival; and 
of conducting the solemn procession on that thrilling 
occasion. As soon as the gods had begun to share 
in the improved knowledge and the more polished 
manners of their worshippers, and to assume the 
human form, they were presumed to participate at 
least in some of the tastes and pleasures, as well as 
the wants and infirmities, natural to man ; and we 
therefore consider it as one of the most ancient func- 
tions of the sacerdotal order, to provide not only- 
ambrosia and nectar, but the more solid and perhaps 
equally savory viands for the gods, and that Epulones 
of some ldnd were early set apart to minister to them 
in this flattering and important capacity. 

As the Lares and some of the Penates, distin- 
guished as the small gods, had, as has been shown in 
the preceding chapter, *the supervision of human 
habitations, and of the connubial ties and offspring, 
they are justly to be regarded as very ancient deities, 
because a numerous train of want and cares, requir- 
ing divine succor, must soon have developed itself in 
the domestic relations of mankind. Accordingly we 
find household gods to have existed in Mesopotamia 
more than thirty-five centuries ago, as may be seen 

the glory of valiant men, whose feats in arms and noble daring had 
immortalized their names, and endeared their memory among a 
warlike people. 

* At such symposial entertainments, the gods were not only the 
guests, but the companions of their votaries at the same table, or 
as Pausanias says, Chenoi and omotra pezoi. 



IN ITS POPULAK DEVELOPMENT. 81 

by consulting the thirty-first chapter of the book of 
Genesis. In conclusion, it may be remarked that the 
East is the prolific hive, whence not only mankind 
but also their gods and their priests, have emigrated 
to the West, and that in tracing many of the latter 
to their sources, we must observe the converse of this 
egressive movement, and go, for instance, from Rome 
to. Greece, from Greece to Egypt, to Phoenicia, 
Phrygia, etc. Gillies, the elegant historian of ancient 
Greece, pronounces the religion of the Romans to 
have been a mere plagiarism from the Greeks, but 
forgets to add that the people whose religious supe- 
riority he so loudly extols, did frequently not scruple 
to replenish their altars and their temples from the 
fertile valley of the Nile, without acknowledgment 
of their indebtedness to those barbarians ! 



SECTION VI. 

THE NATURE OE ATTRIBUTES OF THE GODS, AND THEIR 

MORAL AND PHYSICAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE 

WORLD. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NATURE OR ATTRIBUTES OF THE GODS. 

The first feature in the nature of the gods which 
strikes the attention of the inquirer, is that they are 
not self-existent, but effects in the great chain of 
causation. They are also' subject to fate : the unal- 
terable and all-pervading laws by which the Supreme 
Being governs the universe. Their mental and cor- 
poreal endowments vary in degree and quality ; but 
the highest type of reality under which they appear 
or are presumed to exist, is the human form, which 
it transcends, however, in ideal perfections of power, 
beauty, and excellence. Their character is modified 
by the influences and mutations of the emotions and 
passions, which are inherent even in the most ex- 
alted order of finite spirits, while their shapes and 
potency are doomed to changes: this is a fact which 
is not well defined or clearly expressed in Homer, 

(82) 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 83 

though, as it will appear hereafter, it is deeply and 
indelibly impressed upon the whole symbolical life 
and relations of the gods. Though the intelligence 
of the gods is of a superior grade and of ample 
limits, it is confined ; and when omniscience is as- 
cribed to them, it is to be deemed to be such only 
comparatively. The reason of this is evident; for 
the gods being the reflection of the human image, 
they could not at first greatly exceed their original in 
any of the psychological perfections. As, however, 
the limits of history and geography widened, and the 
physical and moral sciences began to be cultivated 
with some success, the knowledge of the gods also 
proportionabiy augmented. It is only after man has 
attained the necessary skill to generalize his obser- 
vations and experience, and has found appropriate 
language to express the inductive processes of rea- 
soning, that his gods assume the embodiment of the 
higher and nobler efforts of his abstract ideas, 
divested of every imperfection, and independent of 
the limits and conditions of time and form : such 
was the theology of the sages and philosophers of 
heathen antiquity. Besides, the gods loathe and 
desire, love and hate, or reason and resolve, similar 
to mankind ; and their motives of action are rather 
sensual than purely moral, because man himself, long 
after his recognition and worship of the celestial 
powers, knew no higher principle of conduct. Even 
when the vast and complex system of polytheism 
was completed, and the gods, as the symbolical 
representations of the laws and attributes of the 
Almighty, manifested in the works and phenomena 
of nature, stood before the world in their ultimate 



84 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

development and awful majesty; and an image of 
the true God was here and there accurately traced 
among the manifold deistic forms, the human race 
generally had just ascended high enough or sunk 
sufficiently low, to desire or to need the last and 
highest epiphany of the Supreme Being, in a direct, 
an unerring, and a world-embracing revelation. But 
let us contemplate the divinities of heathenism in the 
fresh and lifelike picture drawn of them by Homer, 
in his immortal epic poem, the Iliad, and anglicized 
if not adorned, by the stately and melodious rhythm 
of Pope. Behold, like the august Amphictyons of 
Greece or the illustrious senators of Rome, the gods 
deliberate in council, and their decisions are sacred 
and inviolable. When Jupiter enters the celestial 
palace, the rest of the deities rise from their thrones 
to do him homage. Like the sages who deserve 
their Olympian fame, they generally reason on a prop- 
osition before they approve or reject it, unless they 
are governed by impulse or warped by partiality, 
which is not seldom the case, showing that the con- 
struction of then minds is analogous to our own. 
The genuine gods are immortal, though their forms, 
as it will appear in the sequel, undergo diseased and 
deathlike metamorphoses; but the mixed offspring 
of gods and men, the demi-gods, are liable to death : 
Sarpedon, Achilles, etc. The gods and goddesses 
woo, are won, or resist. Their ordinary marital con- 
nections comprise the closest ties of consanguinity, 
though sometimes they form temporary alliances 
with mortals. They caress or chastise their infant 
race, and always take a deep and 'an abiding interest 
in their welfare. They are sometimes represented to 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 85 

be of a colossal size, indicative of superior greatness 
and excellence : there was not a goodlier person 
among the children of Israel than Saul, who from 
his shoulders and upwards, was higher than any of 
the people. The Olympian Jupiter had a statue at 
Olympia in Elis, fifty cubits high, and it was es- 
teemed to be one of the seven wonders of the world; 
it was the production of Phidias, and stood in the 
temple of the god, at the end of the Altis or sacred 
grove. The vast image of Baal or Bel, the Babylo- 
nian Jupiter, which was sixty cubits high and six 
wide, and erected in the plain of Dura at Babylon, 
is mentioned in the third chapter of the book of 
Daniel. Another production of huge dimensions 
and attesting the masterly genius of the Athenian 
statuary just noticed, was a statue of the goddess 
Minerva at Athens, " composed," writes Gillies, " of 
gold and ivory, and twenty-six cubits high,* repre- 
sented with the casque, the buckler, the lance, and 
all her usual emblems ; and the warm fancy of the 
Athenians, enlivened and transported by the grace- 
ful majesty of her air and "aspect, confounded the 
painful production of the statuary with the instan- 
taneous creation of Jupiter. To confirm this useful 
illusion, the crafty priests of the temple carefully 
washed and brightened the image, whose extraordi- 
nary lustre increased the veneration of the multitude, 
etc." f 



*Miverva's statue was thirty-nine feet high, calculating the 
cubit at a foot and a half. — G. 

f To keep a master production of art and especially the statue 
of a divinity clean and bright, and to manifest a becoming in- 



86 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

When fully exercised, the tread and voice of 
the gods are terrific. When Posidon, laboring un- 
der strong excitement, firmly planted his feet upon 
the earth, it trembled, the forests shook, and the 
mountains quaked. Mars, when wounded in the 
memorable siege of Troy, bellowed with pain, — 

" Loud as the roar encountering armies 
When shouting millions shake the trembling field ; " 

and Jove frowns with so prodigious an intensity that 
the world is clouded and half the sky shrouded in 
black. He smiles too : so does his august consort 
Juno, but spleen is in her heart ; and so supreme is 
his authority over the immortal denizens of Olym- 
pus, that he can punish them even with the pains of 
Tartarus. The gods require rest and sleep, — 

" Jove on his couch rcclin'd his awful head, 
And Juno slumber'd on the golden bed." 

They also laugh, and so boisterous was the laugh 
which they once raised at Vulcan's awkward grace, 
that the skies shook. Their propensity for the pleas- 
ures of the table as well as then fondness for har- 
monical strains, is not to be mistaken. They feast 
on ambrosia and nectar, — wine too, does not come 
amiss, while Apollo plays on the lyre, and the 
Muses, with voice alternate, accompany the silver 
sound ; and so long do they indulge in the festive 
glee, that at last it grows dark, when they break up 
and retire to their starry domes. The grief of Achil- 

terest in cesthetic propriety, seem not necessarily to warrant the 
invidious imputation of crafty, when applied to the Minervian 
priests. — G. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 87 

les for the loss of his beloved friend Patroclus, 
excited so lively a sympathy in the breast of Thetis, 
his divine mother, that she shed a flood of tears. 
Neptune, also, was touched with sincere sorrow at 
the untimely fate of his slain grandson. A sight of 
the carnage at Troy, fills the sensitive soul of Juno 
with the emotions of a profound sadness ; while 
Apollo is delighted with the sweet paeans sang to 
his honor : he listens and approves! 

All these instances of a deep-felt interest in the 
sufferings of others, as well as the innocent satisfac- 
tion experienced at the melodious expressions of a 
just and spontaneous homage, are indicative of the 
existence and force of the nobler sentiments. A god 
sometimes reproves another, and Jupiter plainly 
told the stern god of war, 'that he was unjust, and 
odious in his sight. Besides, these celestial patrons 
grant or refuse the prayers of mortals, according to 
the exigency of the case, or the treatment which 
they receive at their hands. They are placable and 
inculcate the forgiveness of injuries ; yet owing to 
some old grudge, Minerva often afflicted Mars' bru- 
tal breast with woes. 

Surgery is practised in Heaven, and even gods ex- 
ercise their skill in the Hippocratean art. Diomedes 
wounds the martial divinity just mentioned, and 
sends him groaning to the spirit-world : he bleeds and 
is in a sullen mood. Pseon, physician of the celestial 
patients, is directed by the great Jupiter, to take 
charge of the vanquished and suffering god. And 
thus, — 

" With gentle hand the balm he pour'd around, 
And heal'd the immortal flesh, and clos'd the wound." 



88 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Apollo himself condescends to dress the gaping 
wound of the dying Glaucus, and to breathe new life 
into his fainting heart. It deserves also to be re- 
marked that whatever is attempted against the will 
of the divine powers, is unavailing. Rich offerings, 
however, can accomplish a great deal with them : — 

" Their pow'rs neglected, and no victim slain, 
The walls were rais'd, the trenches sunk in vain." 

When Agamemnon interceded with " the father of 
the gods and men," in behalf of the sad remnant of 
his unhappy Greeks, it was sufficient thus to call the 
attention of the god to the past, — 

" To thee my vows were breath'd from ev'ry shore ; 
What altars smok'd not with our victim's gore ? 
With fat of bulls I fed the constant flame, 
And ask'd destruction to the Trojan name," 

when instantly he sent a fawn, borne by the " bird of 
heaven," an eagle, into the Grecian camp, the pledge 
of his favor, and a victim for his altars. It is also 
possible for a deity to be emulous of distinction, 
and the blue-eyed Athena was deeply sensible of the 
honor of being first named among all her illustrious 
compeers. Anxiety causes sleepless nights in heaven 
as well as upon the earth. The few straggling flow- 
ers which we may gather on the bleak mountains of 
Scandinavian mythology, and which will serve to 
compare a ruder with a more polished race of gods, 
we respectfully present as a freewill-offering, to Juno 
the imperious queen, — 

" A goddess born to share the realms above, 
And styl'd the consort of the thund'ring Jove." 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 89 

According to M'Pherson, Ossian's spirit of Loda, 
in Carricthura, is a Scandinavian god, and the same 
as Odin. His residence was in Inistore, or the 
Orkney Islands.* This Norse deity is composed of 
very ghostly attributes. His form is gloomy and his 
mien dismal. His eyes appear like flames ; his voice 
is hollow and resembles distant thunder. Even his 
martial weapons are of the most subtile texture ; for 
his sword is a meteor, and his spear airy. He goes 
forth on the wings of the wind ; but his dwelling is 
calm above the clouds, and the fields of his rest are 
pleasant. He is, however, a very puissant god ; the 
people bend before him ; he turns the battle in the 
field of the brave ; he looks on the nations, and they 
vanish; and his nostrils pour the blast of death. 
Like Mars, the spirit of Loda, with all his super- 
human qualities, is vulnerable ; feels pain ; and ex- 
presses his keen sense of it in a most frightful man- 
ner. He and Fingal have a quarrel which ends in 
a deadly encounter, and which is thus graphically 
portrayed : " He lifted high his shadowy spear ! He 
bent forward his dreadful height. Fingal advancing, 
drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown Luno. The 
gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy 
ghost. The form fell shapeless into the air, like a 
column of smoke, which the staff of the boy disturbs, 



* The spirit of Loda was not acknowledged by Fingal as his 
deity : he did not worship at the stone of Ms power I " There are," 
says M'Pherson, " many pillars and circles of stones still remain- 
ing in the Orkney Islands, known by the name of the stones and 
circles of Loda ; " they were the altars and incipient temples of 
the gods. 

8* 



90 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

as it rises from the half extinguished furnace. The 
spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he 
rose on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound. 
The waves heard it on the deep. They stopped, in 
their course, with fear : the friends of Fingal started 
at once ; and took their heavy spears. They missed 
the king ; they rose in rage ; all their arms resound." 
Thor, the thunderer, is the Jupiter of the Scandi- 
navians. His form is the human, and he personates 
in every respect, though on a preternatural scale, 
the life and character of man. " The thunder," 
writes Carlyle, " was his wrath ; the gathering of the 
black clouds is the drawing down of Thor's angry 
brows ; the fire-bolt bursting out of Heaven is the 
all-rending hammer flung from the hand of Thor : 
he urges his loud chariot over the mountain tops — 
that is the peal; wrathfully he ' blows in his red 
beard;' that is the rustling storm blast before the 
thunder begins. He engages in all manner of rough 
manual work, scorns no business for its plebeianism ; 
is ever and anon travelling to the country of the 
Jotuns, hurrying those chaotic frost-monsters, subdu- 
ing them, at least straightening and damaging them." 
This severe and sullen divinity would not only scowl 
when he was in a rage, but grasp his ponderous ham- 
mer, till his knuckles grew ivhite. So delicious a 
drink as nectar, it appears, was unknown among the 
Norse deities ; for Thor, in order that his celestial 
brethren might brew beer, went once expressly to 
Jotun land, to seek Hymir's caldron. After much 
rough tumult, he succeeded in snatching the vessel 
from the giant, and clapping it on his head, he found 
that the handles of it reached down to his heels. A 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 91 

grotesque figure for a god ; but the feat indicates a 
jouisant view which it is pleasing to observe in so 
stern a being. 

Baldur, the white god, is the personification of the 
sun. He is described as being beautiful, just, and 
benignant ; and the early Christian missionaries ven- 
tured to trace a resemblance between him and 
Christ. Baldur, the lovely and the good died, and all 
nature was tried for a remedy to restore him, but in 
vain. Frigga, his grief-stricken mother,, sent Her- 
mod, one of the sons of Thor, to recover, or at least 
to see him. Nine days and nine nights the swift 
messenger of the gods rode with the speed of the 
winds towards the frigid, dark region of the north 
pole, when at last, alas! he found him in the 
shadowy abodes of the dead. He at once recog- 
nizes him, speaks with him, but he cannot be deliv- 
ered; Hela — hell, is inexorable! I will only add 
that the death of this most amiable and charming of 
all the Scandinavian divinities, is a mere metamor- 
phosis in his planetary existence, and that the import 
of this myth is the symbolical representation of the 
sun at the winter solstice. In conclusion, it may be 
remarked, that in the image which the character of 
the gods presents to the mind, we discover greater 
physical than moral perfections ; for though their 
moral attributes are distinguished for many admira- 
ble virtues, some of which are truly divine, and far 
exceed the highest efforts of unaided humanity, yet 
in their totality they fall far short of ideal perfection. 
To give a condensed outline of the general nature 
of the gods, founded on the exoteric creed of poly- 
theism, they were mighty, yet they suffered ; just, 



92 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

yet not without selfishness ; merciful, yet partial or 
unpitying; holy, yet peccable; wise, yet not free 
from error. Suffice it to say, that it is a maxim in 
moral theology, that the ideas of mankind in respect 
to the gods and even the Suprerne Being, are more 
or less the reflex personifications of their own psy- 
chological development. 



CHAPTER III. 

THEIR MORAL AND PHYSICAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE 
WORLD. 

In treating of the administration of the gods, it 
will be necessary, in the first place, accurately to 
define the nature of the government under which 
they exercise their lofty functions. A republican 
form of government, however desirable it may be in 
the civil organizations of mankind, is impracticable 
in the social relations of the gods, because they are 
not by nature all equal, but of different grades of 
rank and power, as well as in trust of distinct duties 
and relations. Nor is an oligarchy admissible among 
the kinds of polity which are best adapted to them ; 
for this species of supreme authority confines the 
helm of state to a select number among the constitu- 
ents, which, though feasible among mortals, would 
be absolute death to the superior powers. The rea- 
son is, there is not one of them who is not obliged 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 93 

or determined in his turn, to bear part of the burden 
and enjoy some of the honors incident to the admin- 
istration of the world, however inferior might be the 
post which he should fill in a nicely graduated sys- 
tem of spiritual dignities and ritual distinctions. 
This judicious arrangement, it will be perceived, 
makes them all essentially necessary and important 
parts of one unbroken, stupendous whole. Such 
being the facts of the case, a monarchical form of 
government is the only available one, under the ex- 
isting conditions of confederation among the gods ; 
and accordingly both mythology and history, poetry 
and the fine arts, inform us that they have always 
recognized its superiority over every other form of 
deistic polity, and scrupulously carried out its princi- 
ples in all their connections with the universe or with 
mankind. 

The principal deities who composed the celestial 
monarchies of polytheism, were seldom confined in 
their administrative functions to a single province or 
nation, but extended their dominion over the re- 
motest parts of the habitable globe under various 
names and modified rituals. The uninitiated in 
mythological science, is apt to contemplate differ- 
ent gods in the Jupiter or Zeus of the Greeks and 
Romans ; the Osiris of the Egyptians ; the Bel of 
the Assyrians ; the Thor and the Odin of the Teu- 
tonic people ; the Brahma of the Hindoos ; and the 
Ormuzd of the Persians, etc. ; whereas they are 
essentially the same. Likewise the Isis of the Nile, 
the Hertha of the Germans, and the Ceres of the 
Greeks ; the Astarte of the Syrians, the Phoenicians, 
the Venus of Greece, and the Freyja of Scandina- 



94 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

via; Juno, the queen of heaven, and Frigga, the 
mother of the gods ; the Mitra of the Persians, and 
the Vesta of the Hellenic and Roman people, agree 
respectively in the main features of a common char- 
acter, and concordant functions. Even this list of 
goddesses can be legitimately so abbreviated as to 
resolve all these fair beings into one, when we shall 
have but a single divine pair. In short, at the foun- 
dation of every well arranged system of theogony, 
there were but few radical deities, and the most of 
the gods and goddesses of the popular creed, were 
but the evolutions and modifications of the primary 
divinities — their sons and daughters: themselves 
under new forms and relations. Thus a few male 
and female deities of a benignant nature with their 
offspring, who responded to other names and func- 
tions ; and a small number of malignant divinities, 
together with their progenitial ramifications, consti- 
tuted esoterically the concise nomenclature of the 
theogonic family. Owing to conquests, when the 
victors would impose their gods on the vanquished, 
or to colonizations and emigrations, when the gods 
of the mother country would accompany their vota- 
ries, more than one tribe or nation worshipped the 
same deities even in name ; as, the Greeks and the 
Romans on the one hand, and the Assyrians, the 
Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians on the other. As 
has been stated, there were malignant divinities who 
had an empire of their own, and whose power, though 
fearfully extensive, was restricted within proper limits 
by their benignant antagonists. The most notorious 
among them were Ahriman, Moisasur, Loki, and 
Typhon, and his mischievous " spouse, Nephthys : 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 95 

the first resided in the country of the Magi ; the 
second on the shores of the Indus and the Ganges ; 
the third among the pines and glaciers of Scandina- 
via ; and the fourth or the wedded pair, in the deserts 
bordering from the east and the west on the valley 
of the lower Nile. Beside these distinguishing fea- 
tures in the political organization of the gods, each 
celestial power usually presided over a particular 
branch of the deific government. On Mercury de- 
volved the duty to be the messenger of his divine 
compeers ; Bacchus bore sway over the convivial cup 
and its orgian rites ; and stern Mars found his post 
wherever the cry of battle and the clash of arms re- 
sounded in martial discord. Apollo presided over 
the fine arts, medicine, music, poetry, and eloquence ; 
while Neptune stretched his pronged sceptre over 
the green waters and mountain-waves of old ocean. 
Ceres introduced the cereal grains among mankind, 
and guided and fostered agrarian pursuits ; to be the 
queen of love and the mistress of grace and soft 
delights, became none so well as Venus ; Flora 
betrayed her refined taste in the cultivation of flow- 
ers ; and the elastic and sprightly Diana strung her 
bow in the sports and fatigues of the chase. 

Such is a brief outline of the social constitution 
of the gods, and such the preliminary evidence of 
the providential care which they exercised over the 
pursuits and the interests of mortals. A few facts, 
derived from the records of history and mythology, 
will serve to enlighten our judgment and confirm 
our convictions. According to the mythological 
system of the Hindoos, Vichnou, in the capacity of 
preserver of the world, appeared upon the earth 



96 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

whenever vice and tyranny threatened to endanger 
the safety of mankind. Ten incarnations in the 
shape of man, beast, or monster, attested the deep 
interest which the beneficent god has taken in the 
happiness of the human race, and the paramount 
importance which he attached to virtue. In addi- 
tion to these repeated acts of redemption, Brahma, 
the creator of the world, in order to facilitate the 
exalted destiny of man, kindly gave him his laws, 
and encouraged him to persevere in a holy life, in 
the hope of a glorious reunion with Parabrama : the 
illimitable of time. Caesar and Cicero, two of the 
most illustrious Romans : the one perhaps unrivalled 
as a military chieftain, the other, as a forensic ora- 
tor, both acknowledge a moral supervision of the 
gods in the life and transactions of man. The for- 
mer, in a speech addressed to the Helvetian am- 
bassadors, headed by Divico, having called their 
attention to the refractory conduct of their nation, 
apprises them of the fate which infallibly awaited 
those whose unrepented guilt was similar to their 
own, and bids them remember, " That the immortal 
gods were sometimes wont to grant long impunity, 
and a great run of prosperity to men, whom they 
pursued with the punishment of their crimes, that, 
by the sad reverse of their condition, vengeance 
might fall the heavier." * The latter, in that part of 
his work on the Highest Good and Evil, dedicated to 
Marcus Brutus, having stated that though evil-doers 
might flatter themselves to have nothing to fear on 
account of their conduct, from the knowledge or the 

* Duncan. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 97 

justice of mankind, they nevertheless, " Shuddered 
at the thought that the gods knew it ; and that the 
torment which gnawed day and night at their hearts, 
was felt by them to be a punishment inflicted by the 
immortal gods." It may farther be remarked that in 
the treatise of this author, on the Nature of the Gods, 
the object is no other but to prove and justify a 
superintending providence of the deities ; and I need 
not inform the classic reader with what success he 
executed the task. But it is needless to cite author- 
ities in proof of a subject which, as soon as the gods 
are admitted into the religious creeds of mankind, 
must be deemed self-evident. For on no other prin- 
ciple can the universal institution of sacrificial rites 
and ritual observances, as the most natural and ap- 
propriate forms of divine worship, be accounted for, 
but upon that of an undying conviction that the 
celestial powers take a decided and unceasing inter- 
est in human affairs ; that human happiness or mis- 
ery depends on their instrumentality ; and that all 
natural religion, together with all its various phases 
and expressions ; its faith, its hopes, and its fears, 
owes its origin and perpetuity to there cognition of 
this momentous truth. To this day, the Delay 
Lama of Thibet, believed to be the incarnation of 
Fo, is worshipped not only by the Thibetans, but 
also by a great part of Tartary, under the firm per- 
suasion of his zealous votaries that he blesses the 
present and reveals the future to them ; and that in 
all things, he controls their destiny by his providen- 
tial supervision. Hence it is that they fall prostrate 
before the embodied god and kiss him, papal-like, 
with all the marks of a profound veneration. 
9 



98 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

If we take a more comprehensive view of the sub- 
ject under discussion, it will resolve itself into the 
important proposition, that the gods being virtually 
the symbolical representations of the effects and phe- 
nomena of the laws and causations of the universe, 
and these being the result of the creative wisdom 
and energy of the God of gods, and constituting 
Divine Providence, it follows that the faith of the 
heathens, attributing providential government of the 
world and of mankind to the gods, was based upon 
eternal truth. Hence of Jehovah — the great original 
of all, and of Jove — the putative father of the 
gods, we may say in the expressive language of 
Virgil, " Omnia plena ; " or in that of the bard of 
Twickenham, — 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same ; 
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent; 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : 
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small : 
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.' 



SECTION VII. 

THE ORACLES, DIVINATIONS OR AUGURIES, AND ARUSPICY 
OF HEATHENISM, AND THE FUTURE JUDGMENT OR RE- 
WARDS AND PUNISHMENT DISPENSED BY THE GODS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ORACLES, DIVINATIONS OR AUGURIES, AND ARUSPICY 
OF HEATHENISM. 

Of all the ancient oracles, those of Apollo at 
Delphi, and of Jupiter Amnion in the Lybian 
desert, were the most celebrated. In the opin- 
ion of Herodotus, the origin of oracles is to be 
traced to the prolific soil of Egypt, where, also, 
the theogony or generation of the gods, seems to 
have nourished in the most unbounded luxuriance. 
" The two oracles of Egyptian Thebes and of Do- 
dona," says he, " have entire resemblance to each 
other. The art of divination, as now practised in 
our temples, is thus derived from Egypt ; at least the 
Egyptians were the first who introduced the sacred 
festivals, processions, and supplications, and from 
them the Greeks were instructed." * It appears, also, 

* Belce. 

(99) 



100 THE IIEATIIEN RELIGION 

from the same author, that the first oracle in Greece 
was founded at Dodona, by a priestess of the 
The ban Jupiter, who had been carried off by Phoe- 
nician pirates, and sold / into that country. " Her 
attendance on the temple," writes Gillies, "had 
taught her some of the arts by which this pretension 
was maintained. She chose the dark shade of a 
venerable oak ; delivered mysterious answers to the 
admiring multitude ; her reputation increased ; suc- 
cess gained her associates ; a temple rose to Jupiter, 
and was surrounded by houses for his ministers." 
To this it may be added, that not only shrines which 
attested the skill of human art, but also groves, grot- 
tos, and caverns, were the favorite resorts of oracu- 
lar responses ; and that in a short time, after the 
introduction of the first tripod into northern Greece, 
the spirit of vaticination rapidly spread over vari- 
ous provinces inhabited by the Hellenic race. 

After these remarks, we again listen to the instruc- 
tions of the historian of " Ancient Greece," who thus 
continues : " During the heroic ages, indeed, as illus- 
trious and pious men believed themselves, on impor- 
tant occasions, honored with the immediate presence 
and advice of their heavenly protectors, the secon- 
dary information of priests and oracles was less gen- 
erally regarded and esteemed. But in proportion as 
the belief ceased that the gods appeared in human 
form, or the supposed visits at least of these celestial 
beings seemed less frequent and familiar, the office 
of priests became more important and respectable, 
and the confidence in oracles continually gained 
ground. At length these admired institutions, being 
considered as the chief and almost only mode of 



m ITS POPULAK DEVELOPMENT. 101 

communication with supernatural powers, acquired 
a degree of influence calculated to control every 
principle of authority, whether civil or sacred." 
Speaking of the Delphian oracle, which enjoyed the 
protection and superintendence of the Amphictyonic 
council,* he adds : " But the inhabitants of Delphi, 
who, if we may use the expression, were the original 
proprietors of the oracle, always continued to direct 
the religious ceremonies, and to conduct the impor- 
tant business of prophecy. It was their province 
alone to determine at what time and on what occa- 
sion, the Pythia should mount the sacred tripod, to 
receive the prophetic steams,f by which she com- 
municated with Apollo. "When overflowing with 
the heavenly inspiration, she uttered the confused 
words, or rather frantic sounds, irregularly suggested 
by the impulse of the god; the Delphians collected 
these sounds, reduced them into order, animated 



* The celebrated council of the Amphictyons was originally 
composed of twelve persons, who represented the Grecian States. 
They generally met twice every year at Delphi, though some- 
times they convened at Thermopylae. The object of their institu- 
tion was to adjudicate in all cases of dissension or grievances, 
which might arise between the different States of Greece. Their 
decisions were universally esteemed sacred and inviolable. 

t These prophetic steams were sulphureous vapors, emitted 
from the crevices of a profound cavern within the temple-, over 
which the priestess called Pythia, sat bare on a three-legged stool, 
known as the tripod. These vapors powerfully affected the brain, 
and were deemed to be the sure and hallowed media of divine in- 
spiration. The oracles of Greece were usually delivered in 
hexameter verse, and as the origin of this poetic measure was as- 
cribed to the Delphian Apollo, it was also called the theological 
or Pythian metre. — G. 

9* 



102 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

them with sense, and adorned them with har- 
mony, etc." 

Gibbon charges the ancient oracles with a public 
conviction of deceit and fraud, and adds with evi- 
dent delight, that Constantine the Great imposed 
upon them an ignominious silence ; but while this 
accomplished historian condemns the vices, he for- 
gets to be just to the virtues of this venerable insti- 
tution. Without presuming to ignore its inherent 
defects or ultimate corruptions, I shall briefly notice 
its benign influence on human society as it has been 
portrayed by the candid and judicious Pb'litz, in his 
admirable Weltgeschichte. " The oracles which ex- 
ercised so important an 'influence in Greece, espec- 
ially during the first periods of civilization," says 
he, " not unfrequently guided public opinion and the 
spirit of national enterprise, with distinguished wis- 
dom. Preeminent among the rest, the oracle at 
Delphi enjoyed a world-wide renown ; and there it 
was that the wealth and the treasures of more than 
one continent, were concentrated. Its responses re- 
vealed many a tyrant, and foretold his fate. Many 
an unhappy being was saved through its means, or 
directed by its counsel. It encouraged useful insti- 
tutions, and communicated the discoveries in art or 
science under the sanction of a divine authority. 
And lastly, by its doctrines and example, it caused 
the moral law to be kept holy, and civil rights to be 
respected." 

M. Mallet, in his " Northern Antiquities," speak- 
ing of the addictedness of the Scandinavians to divi- 
nation, auguries, etc., thus proceeds : " They had 
oracles, like the people of Italy and Greece, and 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 103 

these oracles were not less revered, nor less famous 
than theirs. It was generally believed, either that 
the gods and goddesses, or, more commonly, that 
the three destinies, whose names I have given else- 
where, delivered out these oracles in their temples. 
That of Upsal was as famous for its oracles as its 
sacrifices. There were also celebrated ones in Dalia, 
a province of Sweden ; in Norway and Denmark." 
" It was," says Saxo the Grammarian, " a custom 
with the ancient Danes to consult the oracles of the 
Parcae, concerning the future destiny of children 
newly born. Accordingly Fridleif, being desirous to 
know that of his son Olaus, entered into the temple 
of the gods to pray ; and, being introduced into the 
sanctuary, he saw three goddesses upon so many 
seats. The first, who was of a beneficent nature, 
granted the infant beauty and the gift of pleasing. 
The second gave him a noble heart. But the third, 
who was envious and spiteful, to spoil the work of 
her sisters, imprinted on him the stain of covetous- 
ness." 

It should seem that the idols or statues of the gods 
and goddesses delivered these oracles vivd voce. In 
an ancient Icelandic chronicle we read of one Indria, 
who went from home to wait for Thorstein, his en- 
emy. " Thorstein," says the author, " upon his arri- 
val, entered into the temple. In it was a stone, cut 
probably into a statue, which he had been accus- 
tomed to worship ; he prostrated himself before it, 
and prayed to it — to inform him of his destiny. 
Indria, who stood without, heard the stone chant 
forth these verses : ' It is for the last time, it is with 
feet drawing near to the grave, that thou art come to 



104 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

this. place : for it is most certain, that, before the sun 
ariseth, the valiant Indria shall make thee feel his 
hatred. ' " The people persuaded themselves, some- 
times, that these idols answered by a gesture or a 
nod of the head, which signified that they hearkened 
to the prayers of their supplicants. 

To remove the veil which hides our vision from 
the future, has been attempted with more or less 
success in all ages of the world ; and therefore the 
propensity to pry into the lap of time, contemplated 
as one of the faculties of the human mind, comes 
recommended to us under the sanction of God. To 
regard or deride- it as the corrupt offspring and lin- 
gering remains of a superstitious age, and hastily to 
condemn it as unworthy a sober investigation, would 
be as unphilosophical as it is wrong. That there has 
been true prophecy, not one that believes in the in- 
spired word of the Almighty, will presume to deny ; 
and hence vaticination in its nobler and more perfect 
form at least, has been legitimated by Divine appro- 
val. Zwinglius, the Swiss reformer, attested the 
comprehensiveness of his faith in the providence of 
the Supreme Being, in the cosmopolitan doctrine that 
the Holy Ghost was not entirely excluded from the 
more worthy portion of the heathen world. Admit- 
ting its truth, we cannot easily conceive a valid reason 
why a heathen thus favored, should not be capable 
of true prophecy. Balaam was a noted diviner and 
a heathen, and yet his predictions concerning the 
Israelites were verified. And he can by no means 
be considered as one of the best specimens of hea- 
thenism, yet the son of Beor, as the history of the 
case clearly shows, evidently acted under a divine 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 105 

impulse. By the art of necromancy, the witch at 
Endor pretended to reveal future events, and as far 
as Saul is concerned, her revelation was sadly ac- 
complished. This is certainly a singular phenome- 
non in the Jewish theocracy, and the prophetic 
element which it contained, may be explained by 
supposing that this artful woman in the guise of 
Samuel, made a happy guess, or that God for some 
wise purpose, converted her execrable art to his own 
interest ; though it cannot be denied that such a sup- 
position involves a suspension or a violation of his 
own laws on kako-magia. 

In respect to augury and aruspkfy, it is not to be 
imagined that the priests who presided over these 
branches of the polytheistic creed, when society had 
attained a high state of civilization, any longer seri- 
ously believed that the flight of a bird, the cackling 
of a hen, or the viscera of a beast, could foreshadow 
future events. On the contrary, it may be safely 
asserted that these divinative arts, so well calculated 
to inspire awe and homage in the breasts of the mul- 
titude, were used at least to a considerable extent as 
pedagogical vehicles, sanctified by time and opinion, 
and through which reason and religion declared the 
result of their experience and observations. The 
term augur denotes a soothsayer or diviner, and 
means one that judges of the will of the gods as it 
regards impending or future events from the obser- 
vations made on various objects and phenomena in 
nature, according to certain augurial laws. Ken- 
nett derives it either from the motion and actions, or 
the chirping and chattering of birds. There were 
different kinds of augury, which are founded either 



106 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

on the observations of the heavens ; of various birds 
and beasts — oionistike and zoo-manieia ; and, lastly, 
of the usual incidents of life. If a thundergust 
arose, the augur took notice whether it came from 
the right or the left hand, according to the four tem- 
pla or quarters into which the heavens were divided 
for the use of this art ; whether the number of 
strokes were even or odd, etc. So important was 
this species of augury deemed to be, that only the 
master of the augurial college could take it. When 
beasts, either wild or tame, constituted the subject 
of augury, it was of importance to observe whether 
they appeared in a strange place, crossed the road, 
or ran to the right or to the left side of their line of 
progression. The omens taken from the night or the 
notes of birds, decided nothing unless they were con- 
firmed by a repetition of the token. Besides, the 
sneezing or stumbling of a person; the hearing of 
mysterious voices or seeing of apparitions by him ; 
the falling of salt upon the table or the spilling of 
wine upon one's clothes, etc., were serious subjects 
for augurial prognostication, even among a people 
whose senators clothed in their robes of state, and 
sitting in silent majesty in the forum, the ancient 
Gauls took to be gods ! Domestic fowls were 
especially kept for the benefit of this important pro- 
fession, and the manner in which they took or 
refused their food, determined the prosperous or ad- 
verse character of the omen, and might hasten or 
suspend the downfall of an empire.* Oplii-manteia 

* Bcloe on Herodotus remarks : " Some birds furnished omens 
from their chattering, as crows, owls, etc. ; others from the direc- 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 107 

was also embraced in the category of the augur's 
duties, as it appears from the following passage in 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, thus rendered by Dryden : — 

'• At Aulis, "with united powers, they meet ; 
But there, cross winds or calms detain'd the fleet. 
Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, 
And JoA r e with solemn sacrifice adore, 
A boding sign the priests and people see : 
A snake of size immense ascends a tree, 
And in the leafy summit spied a nest, 
Which o'er her callow young a sparrow press'd ; 
Eight were the birds, unfledged ; their mother flew 
And hover'd round her care, but still in view, 
Till the fierce reptile first devour'd the brood ; 
Then seiz'd the fluttering dam, and drank her blood. 
This dire ostent the fearful people view ; 
Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew 
Whaf heaven decreed ; and with a smiling glance, 
Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance : 
; Oh Argives, we shall conquer ; Troy is ours, 
But long delays shall first afflict our powers ; 
Nine years of labor the nine birds portend, 
The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.' " 

The aruspices had their name from looking upon 
the altars — ab aris aspiciendis. The ominose art 
which they practised, was designated by the term 



tion in which they flew, as eagles, vultures, hawks, etc. An' eagle 
seen to the right was fortunate. The sight of an eagle was sup- 
posed to foretell to Tarquinius Priscus that he should obtain the 
crown 5 it predicted, also, the conquests of Alexander ; and the 
loss of their dominions to Tarquin the Proud, and Dionysius, the 
tyrant of Syracuse. A raven seen on the left hand was unfortu- 
nate — 

Ssepe sinistra cava prsedixit ab ilice cornix. — Virgil." 



108 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

aruspiey. The laws of this species of prognostica- 
tion demanded an investigation of the following 
subjects : First, the sacrificial victims before they 
were cut up ; secondly, the entrails of those victims 
after they were cut up — extispicia; thirdly, the 
flame and smoke of the fire over which they were 
consumed' — puramanleia and kapnomanteia ; and 
fourthly, the flour or bran, frankincense, wine, and 
water, used in the sacrifice, and the taste, smell, 
color, and quantity of which, was to be carefully 
ascertained and accurately balanced. The science 
of augury and aruspicy is of so ancient a date that 
mythology has not hesitated to trace its origin to 
Tages, a grandson of Jupiter, who it is affirmed was 
the first who taught it to the Etrurians. It is said 
that Tages was found by Tuscan ploughmen in the 
form of a clod, when gradually assuming the shape 
and faculties of a perfect man, he began to foretell 
the future ; a fact to which Ovid thus alludes : — 

" And, Tages named by natives of the place, 
Taught arts prophetic to the Tuscan race." 

The ancient Scandinavians had diviners of both 
sexes, who bore the name of prophets, and as such 
were the objects of profound reverence. Some of 
them were said to have familiar spirits who never 
left them, and whom they consulted under the form 
of little idols ; others dragged the ghosts of the de- 
parted from their tombs, and forced the dead to tell 
them what would happen : the Skalds or bards pre- 
tended to possess the power — through the means of 
certain songs, to be able to communicate with the 
dead, and to interrogate the past or reveal the future 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 109 

for the benefit of the living. The Runic characters 
of these people were employed as the most potent 
media to presage future events, and augury and 
aruspicy in their various ramifications, had attained 
among them to the rank and influence of a sacred 
mystery, full of deep significance, and the certain in- 
terpreters of destiny. " There were letters, or Runes," 
writes Mallet, translated by Bishop Percy, " to procure 
victory — to preserve from prison — to relieve women 
in labor — to cure bodily diseases — to dispel evil 
thoughts from the mind — to dissipate melancholy — 
and to soften the severity of a cruel mistress. They 
employed pretty nearly the same characters for all 
these different purposes, but they varied the order 
and combination of the letters ; they wrote them 
either from right to left, or from top to bottom, or in 
form of a circle, or contrary to the course of the sun, 
etc. I have already remarked that they had often 
no other end, in sacrificing human victims, than to 
know what was to happen by inspection of their en- 
trails, by the effusion of their blood, and by the 
greater or less degree of celerity with which they 
sunk to the bottom of the water. The same motive 
engaged them to lend an attentive ear to the singing 
of birds, which some diviners boasted a power of 
interpreting, etc." 

The Druids of Britain had the seat of their arus- 
picial mysteries in the sombre gloom of consecrated 
groves. It was in the midst of them that they sac- 
rificed the prisoners of war and the sacred victims ; 
and that they foretold the course of future events 
from the course which the crimson current assumed 
around the reeking altars. According to Tacitus, 
10 



110 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the rude and warlike sires of the Germanic people, 
must have been rare adepts in the mystic rites of 
divination. " Their attention to auguries, and the 
practice of divining by lot," says he, " is conducted 
with a degree of superstition not excelled by any 
other nation. Their mode of proceeding by lots 
is wonderfully simple. The branch of a fruit-tree is 
cut into small pieces, which, being all distinctly 
marked, are thrown at random on a white garment. 
If a question of public interest be pending, the priest 
of the canton performs the ceremony ; if it be 
nothing more than a private concern, the master of 
the family officiates. With fervent prayers offered 
.up to the gods, his eyes devoutly raised to heaven, 
he holds up three times each segment of a twig, and 
as the marks rise in succession, interprets the de- 
crees of fate. If appearances prove unfavorable, 
there ends all consultation for that day : if, on the 
other hand, the chances are propitious, they require, 
for greater certainty, the sanction of auspices. The 
well-known superstition, which in other countries 
consults the flight and notes of birds, is also estab- 
lished in Germany; but to receive intimation of 
future events from horses, is the peculiar credulity 
of the country.* For this purpose a number of 
milk-white steeds, unprofaned by mortal labor, 
is constantly maintained at public expense, and 
placed to pasture in the religious groves. When 
occasion requires, they are harnessed to a sacred 
chariot, and the priest, accompanied by, the king, or 
chief of the State, attends to watch the motions 

* This is an error, as ike sequel of this chapter will show. — G. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. Ill 

and the neighing of the horses. No other mode of 
augury is received with such implicit faith by the 
people, the nobility, and the priesthood. The horses, 
upon these solemn occasions, are supposed to be the 
organs of the gods, and the priests their favored in- 
terpreters. They have still another way of prying 
into futurity, to w T hich they have recourse, when 
anxious to know the issue of an important war. 
They seize, by any means in their power, a captive 
from the adverse nation, and commit him in single 
combat with a champion selected from then own 
army. Each is provided with weapons after the 
manner of his country, and the victory, wherever it 
falls, is deemed a sure prognostic of the event." * 

Caesar informs us that among the Gauls, animated 
already at that early age, it may be presumed, by a 
spirit of inherent gallantry, the matrons of the family 
assumed the duty and enjoyed the honor, of illustrat- 
ing and defining the future by die or lot. Among 
the Persians, horses generally were deemed sacred to 
the sun, but white horses especially were held in the 
highest estimation, and treated with the most delicate 
care, as the peculiar favorites of the deity. To the 
neighing of his horse, brought about by a trick of 
his groom, Darius owed his elevation to the Persian 
throne. Thunder in winter, and earthquakes at any 
season of the year, the Scythians taught to be omi- 
nous. " They have among them," writes the father 
of history, " a great number who practise the art of 
divination ; for this purpose they use a number of 
willow twigs, in this manner : they bring large bun- 

* Murphy, translator Taciii. 



112 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

dies of these together, and having united them, 
dispose them one by one on the ground, each bundle 
at a distance from the rest. This done, they pretend 
to foretell the future, during which they take up the 
bundles separately, and tie them again together. 
This mode of divination is hereditary- among them. 
The enaries, or " effeminate men," affirm that the art 
of divination was taught them by the goddess Ve- 
nus. They take, also, the leaves of the lime-tree, 
which dividing into three parts, they twine round 
their fingers ; they then unbind it, and exercise the 
art to which they pretend." * 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FUTURE JUDGMENT OR REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS 
DISPENSED BY THE GODS. 

I HAVE now to request as a particular favor, that 
the reader will accompany me across the Stygian 
lake, as there are some eminent personages in the 
dismal place just beyond it, whose character and 
functions demand a closer scrutiny. A small fee 
for Charon, the ferryman, and a little courage, are 
the only preliminaries which are necessary on the 
present occasion, to insure a safe passage; but 
should a defunct ghost desire to enter into the lower 

* Beloe. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 113 

regions, he must take the precaution to be first 
buried, otherwise he will be doomed to wander about 
the shores of Hades during a whole centenary period 
of time, before he can be allowed an entrance into 
the palace of Pluto : this curious fact sufficiently ac- 
counts for the existence of the many apparitions 
which have always disturbed the fancy and alarmed 
the fears of the credulous ! The kingdom of hell is 
governed by his royal majesty Pluto, a son of Sat- 
urn and Ops, and includes within its ample limits 
the whole subterranean world. Its entrance is 
through the Avernian cave, near Syracuse, in Sicily. 
It was here where Pluto descended to his shadowy 
realm, bearing with him the fair Proserpine as the 
prize of his successful gallantry; and it was here 
whither the people of Syracuse resorted to commem- 
orate the daring event, in the observance of annual 
festivals, in which multitudes of both sexes par- 
ticipated. Here, too, it was whence, according to 
Virgil, iEneas and the Sibyl set out on their 
sub-mundane excursion.* The usual tenebricose 
ensigns of majesty which distinguish Pluto, are a 
key instead of a sceptre, and an ebony crown. His 
horses and chariot are black as night. When the 
dead have once arrived in his uninviting dominions, 
the gates are locked, and regress into life is impossi- 
ble. 

This awful divinity bears various cognomens, 

* Pope Gregory the Great, regarded the crater of Mount iEtna 
as the outer gate of Hades. The same honor has been conferred 
on Hekla, by north-European authors. The ancient Persians 
located it in Okesra, a region celebrated for its innumerable jets 
of naphtha everywhere bounding forth in spontaneous combustion. 
10* 



114 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

which either denote the nature of his functions or 
the attributes of his empire. He is called Pluto, on 
account of the wealth which lies hidden in the bow- 
els of the earth ; Hades, in consequence of the 
gloomy and melancholy appearance of his abode, or 
because he sits in darkness and obscurity, and is 
invisible to his airy subjects ; Agesilaus, for he con- 
ducts mortals to the infernal regions; Orcus, inas- 
much as he hastens the decay and death of mankind, 
or brings up the rear in the last, sad moments of 
their lives ; and Summanus, from the fact that he is 
the chief of all the deities in the Stygian territories, 
and principal governor of the departed spirits. Life 
and death are in the hands of the inexorable god, 
and he prolongs or shortens the career of mortals, 
according to his supreme pleasure. In Hades, crim- 
inal causes continually crowd the sombre tribunal of 
the stern and inflexible dispensers of justice. All 
wicked persons receive their exit from the stage of 
time: the prelude to final judgment, from the 
impartial hands of Nona, Decima, and Morta — 
the three Fates, thus denominated because they 
control the past,, present, and future, according to 
fate, which Cicero affirms, implies all that is to 
happen agreeably to the decrees of God. They 
also respond to the appellation of Parcoe, either 
because they spare no person, or because they dis- 
tribute good and bad gifts to man at his birth. To 
their delicate fingers the fatal thread of life is 
officially confided. The three judges, Minos, Rhada- 
manthus, and iEcus, unmoved by pity, deaf to 
bribes, and disregardful of the distinctions of age, 
sex, or rank, pass sentence of condemnation on the 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 115 

guilty shades ; and the three Furies carry it into ex- 
ecution. These goddesses, charged with such impor- 
tant penal functions, are frightful beings ; for though 
they have the fair visages of women, their looks and 
official insignia inspire terror. They are generally 
represented with a grim aspect, bloody garments, 
and serpents wreathing around their heads and the 
upper part of their bodies. They hold a burning 
torch in one hand, and a whip of scorpions in the 
other, while dismay, rage, paleness, and death, com- 
pose their retinue and obey their behests. 

There is a place in the Plutonian empire which, 
as Virgil informs us in the iEneid, teems with many 
rare and charming natural advantages, and displays a 
scenery of preternatural loveliness : abounding every- 
where in inexhaustible sources of the most varied 
and exquisite delights ; and which is known as the 
Elysium or Elysii Campi, the abode or the fields of 
the blessed.* It might be presumed that all those 

* The ancients were far from being unanimous as to the precise 
locality of the Elysian fields. Some taught that they were to be 
sought near the African coast, in the Atlantic ocean, among a 
cluster of islands which they designated as the Fortunate ; ethers 
placed them in the island of Leuce, in the Euxine sea; and 
Virgil, as a good Roman, hesitated not to point out Italy as the 
fittest country that could overlie so felicitous a spot. The poet 
Lucian assigned to them a situation near the moon, but Plutarch, 
more orthodox as well as true to prescription, was content to find 
his paradise in the centre of the earth. In one thing, however, 
all agreed, that it was a most enchanting region, with bowers for- 
ever green, delightful meadows, and pleasant streams ; with a 
balmy air, a serene sky, and a salubrious climate ; with birds con- 
tinually warbling in the groves, and a heaven illustrated by a 
more glorious sun and brighter stars than the similar orbs which 
illumine the path of mortals. 



116 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

who had once entered this ecstatic abode, where the 
pleasures of the soul are at once so refined and so 
innocent, and where happiness is apparently so com- 
plete, would always remain in it, but this, according 
to some authors, is not the case. In process of 
time many of the happy spirits must return upon the 
the earth, and pass into new bodies ; and that they 
may not mourn the loss of their blissful state, nor re- 
coil from the miseries which await them in this 
world, from the bitter recollections of a past life, they 
drink of the waters of Lethe, one of the rivers of hell.* 
The metempsychosis or doctrine of the transmigra- 
tion of the soul into different bodies, as taught by 
Pythagoras, without reference to its Plutonian or 
Elysian existence, which the Samian philosopher 
seems to have considered as the mere poetic embel- 
lishments of the future state, is thus described by 
Ovid, in the language of Dryden : — 

" What feels the body when the soul expires, 
By time corrupted, or consumed by fires ? 
Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats 
In other forms, and only changes seats. 
Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare. 
Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war; 
My name and lineage I remember well, 
And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell. 
In Argive Juno's fame I late beheld 
My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former shield. 
Then death, so call'd, is but old matter dress'd 
In some new figure, and a varied vest : 



Animas, quibus altera fato 



Corpora debeutur, Lethrci ad fluminis undam 

Securos latices et longa oblivia potent. — VirgiUi uEneis, 6. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 117 

Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies ; 

And here and there the unbodied spirit flies, 

By time, or force, or sickness dispossess'd, 

And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast ; 

Or hunts without, till ready limbs it finds, 

And actuates those according to their kind ; 

From tenement to tenement is toss'd, 

The soul is still the same, the figure only lost : 

And, as the soften'd wax new seals receives, 

This face assumes, and that impression leaves ; 

Now call'd by one, now by another name ; 

The form is only changed, the wax is still the same. 

So death, so called, can but the form deface ; 

The immortal soul flies out in empty space, 

To seek her fortune in some other place. 

Then let not piety be put to flight, 

To please the taste of glutton appetite ; 

But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell, 

Lest from their seats your parents you expel ; 

With rabid hunger feed upon your kind, 

Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind." * 

Such only of the Elysian inhabitants who were dis- 
tinguished for their exalted virtues, were exempt 
from transmigration, and were at last admitted into 
the society of the gods, while their idola or simulacra, 
according to the fertile fancy of the poets, continued 
to reside in the lower regions. The ancient Mex- 
icans, as it appears from the statement of Kaiser, 
taught the existence of numerous spirit-abodes, into 
one of which the innocent shades of children were re- 



* Pythagoras and his disciples were as rigid vegetarians as 
the most orthodox Hindoos, or the strictest members of the Gra- 
hamite school, and peremptorily prohibited the use of animal 
food as a violation of the laws of humanity, and a flagrant outrage 
against the metempsychosial destiny of the soul. — G. 



118 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

ceived ; into another, — the sun, the valiant and illus- 
trious souls of heroes ascended; while the corrupt 
and hideous ghosts of the wicked were doomed to 
grovel and pine in subterranean caverns. Nine 
heavens served to circumscribe their fanciful visions 
and ardent dreams of future bliss* The Green- 
landers were contented to predicate the doctrine of 
but one future Eden, which they located in the 
abyss of the ocean, and to which skilful fishermen 
alone might dare to aspire with the confident hope 
of success. The relentless martial spirit of the Ap- 
palachian Indians, proclaimed itself in consigning 
their cowardly red brethren to the profound chasms 
of their native mountains, where, overwhelmed by 
snow and ice, they fell victims to the tender mercy 
of shaggy and ferocious bears. The aborigines of 
America were unanimous in their belief in the im- 
mortality of the soul, and a happy state hereafter, 
somewhat similar to the Elysian bliss of the Greeks 
and Romans ; but of a Hades, they know little and 
speak seldom, and the savage-like Appalachian hell 
just described, is one of the remarkable exceptions 
in the general creed. " All," writes Doctor Robert- 
son, " entertain hopes of a future and more happy 
state, where they shall be forever exempt from the 



* The last month in the year of the Mexican aborigines, was 
called Izcalli, which we are told by Clavigero, signifies resurrec- 
tion, and its hieroglyphical symbol was a man holding a child by 
the head. The hell of these Indians was denominated mictlan, 
from mictlampa — the north, and it was located in the higher re- 
gions of the northern hemisphere : the place of destruction and 
palingenesia of many of the ancients. — G,- 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 119 

calamities which embitter human life in its present 
condition. This future state they conceive to be a 
delightful country, blessed with perpetual spring, 
whose forests abound with game, whose rivers 
swarm with fish, where famine is never felt, and 
uninterrupted plenty shall be enjoyed without labor 
or toil. 

But as men, in forming their first imperfect 
ideas concerning the invisible world, suppose that 
there they shall continue to feel the same desires, 
and to be engaged in the same occupations, as in 
the present world ; they naturally ascribe eminence 
and distinction, in that state, to the same qualities 
and talents which are here the objects of their 
esteem. The Americans, accordingly, allotted the 
highest place in their country of spirits, to the skilful 
hunter, the adventurous and successful warrior, and 
to such as had tortured the greatest number of cap- 
tives, and devoured their flesh. These notions were 
so prevalent, that they gave rise to a universal cus- 
tom, which is, at once, the strongest evidence that 
the Americans believe in a future state, and the best 
illustration of what they expect there. As they im- 
agine that departed spirits begin their career anew 
in the world whither they are gone, that their friends 
may not enter upon it defenceless and unprovided, 
they bury together with the bodies of the dead their 
bow, their arrows, and other weapons used in hunt- 
ing or war ; they deposit in their tombs the sldns of 
stuffs of which they make garments, Indian corn, 
manioc, venison, domestic utensils, and whatever is 
reckoned among the necessaries in their simple mode 
of life. In some provinces, upon the decease of a 



120 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

cazique or chief, a certain number of his wives, of 
his favorites, and of his slaves, were put to death, 
and interred together with him, that he might appear 
with the same dignity in his future station, and be 
waited upon by the same attendants. This persua- 
sion is so deep-rooted, that many of the deceased 
person's retainers offer themselves voluntary victims, 
and court the privilege of accompanying their de- 
parted masters, as a high distinction." To these 
graphic and faithful delineations of a creed, strik- 
ingly characteristic of an interesting and a once 
numerous race of people, we add the naive and pa- 
thetic effusions of Pope, the author of the immortal 
production — the Essay on Mem, on the same attrac- 
tive subject: — 

" Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; 
His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk, or milky- way ; 
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, 
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n, 
Some safer world in depth of woods embrae'd, 
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste, 
Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold ! 
To be, contents his natural desire, 
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

The feralia was a festival instituted among 
the ancient Romans in honor of deceased mortals, 
whose object was to alleviate their future suffering 
while it entertained them with festive cheer. " It 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 121 

continued," writes Smith, in his " Festivals, Games, 
and Amusements," " for eleven days, during which 
time presents were carried to the graves of the dead, 
whose manes, it was universally believed, came and 
hovered over their tombs, and feasted upon the pro- 
visions which had been placed there by the hand of 
piety and affection. It was also believed that during 
this period they enjoyed rest and liberty, and a suspen- 
sion from their punishment in the infernal regions." 
From the notion of the Greeks in the pre-Homeric 
ages that the souls of deceased warriors delighted in 
human blood, their funeral games and ceremonies 
were often of the most cruel description ; and hence 
we find that to revenge and appease or regale the 
shade of his friend Patroclus, Achilles slew twelve 
of the young Trojan nobility at his funeral-pile.* 

The Persian creed of a future state and retribution, 
next deserves our careful attention. It teaches an 
intermediate state between death and the resurrec- 
tion, which depends for its degree of happiness or 
utter misery, on the judicial decision of Ormuzd, 
pronounced upon the bridge Tsckinevad, which 
divides heaven and earth, and beneath which, is the 
yawning abyss of hell. Prior to the resurrection, the 
soul, according to its desert, is either admitted into 
some abode of bliss, or cast into torment, where it is 
doomed to suffer more or less the pains of condem- 
nation. The antagonistic empires of Ormuzd and 
Ahriman,f are engaged in perpetual warfare with 

* Smith. 

f These are two deities, of whom the former is of a beneficent, 
the latter, of a malevolent nature, and the same originally as the 
11 



122 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

each other, but after the lapse of twelve thousand 
years — the duration of the world, Ahriman will be 
vanquished ; the empire of darkness, converted by 
Ormuzd into light, cease ; the dead raised up ; and 
he who has made all things, cause the earth and the 
sea to restore again the remains of the departed, 
when Ormuzd shall clothe them with flesh and 
blood, while they that live at the time of the resur- 
rection, must die in order likewise to participate in 
its advantages. Before this momentous event takes 
place, three illustrious prophets shall appear, who 
will announce their presence by the performance of 
miracles. During this period of its existence, and 
till its final renewal, the earth will be afflicted with 
pestilence, tempests, war, famine, and various other 
baleful calamities. After the resurrection, every one 
will be apprised of the good or evil which he may 
have done, and the righteous and the wicked will be 
separated from each other. Those of the latter 
whose offences have not yet been expiated, will be 
again cast into hell during the term of three days 
and three nights, in the presence of an assembled 



devil or satan of the Jews and Christians. Both emanated from 
Zeruane Akerdne, the Supreme Being, but the latter, in conse- 
quence of his envy towards the former, forfeited his primeval pu- 
rify, and was condemned by Zeruane Akerene to the region of 
darkness, during the space of twelve thousand years. This pe- 
riod of punishment has its basis in the zodiac. As the sun passes 
through the twelve zodiacal signs in the course of a year, and 
then recommences its revolution where it started twelve months 
ago; so the duration of the world is calculated at a thousand 
years to a sign, and twelve such periods as the limit of the world, 
when a new cosmic order of things will be ushered into existence. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 123 

world, in order to be purified in the burning streams 
of liquid ore. After this they enjoy endless felicity 
in the society of the blessed, and the pernicious em- 
pire of Ahriman is fairly exterminated. Even this 
lying spirit will be under the necessity to avail him- 
self of this fiery ordeal, and made to rejoice in its 
expurgating and cleansing efficacy. Nay, hell itself 
is purged of its mephitic impurities and washed 
clean in the flames of a universal paliggenesia* 
The earth is now the habitation of bliss ; all nature 
glows in light; and the equitable and benignant 
laws of Ormuzd reign supremely throughout the 
illimitable universe. Finally, after the resurrection, 
mankind will recognize each other again ; wants, 
cares, and passions will cease ; and every thing in 
the paradisian and all-embracing empire of light, 
shall redound to the praises of the beneficent god 
Ormuzd.* 

In the religious system of the Hindoos, Brahma 
and Moisasur correspond to Ormuzd and Ahriman 
among the Persians. Like their distinguished ana- 
logues, they emanated from the Supreme Being, 
here called Parabrahma ; and like them, the former 
retained by his goodness, while the latter forfeited by 
his wickedness, his original holiness. After order and 
harmony had reigned for a long time in the super- 
nal world of spirits, Moisasur grew envious on 
account of Brahma's splendor, and, backed by a 
great number of inferior, kindred spirits, refused 



* Regeneration, renovation, or restoration of all things to its 
primordial state, 
f Polite. 



124 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

obedience to the divine laws. In vain did Brahma 
endeavor to reclaim them: they began to wage a 
war of extermination against the good spirits, and 
Siva, known also as driven, was reluctantly com- 
pelled to eject them from heaven, and hurl them 
into Onderah, the abyss of darkness. Here for- 
tunately they repented of their flagitious -deeds, 
and, upon the intercession of the three superior dei- 
ties, Brahma, Vichnou or Vichnoo, and Siva,* Para- 
brahma resolved to provide them with the means 
of redemption from their wretched condition. Ac- 
cordingly he doomed them to pass through fifteen 
different states of existence, of which the seven low- 
est are confined to various kinds of animal bodies, 
and are intended as chastisements and ameliorations. 
The eighth stage of metempsychosis is the proba- 
tion in a human body. In this intermediate state, 
the fallen spirits have an opportunity to prepare 
themselves for the higher degrees of purification. 
Should they, however, despise the dictates of reason, 
they will again return to the lowest grade of being, 
and be obliged to begin anew the critical gyrations of 
existence. As to the seven superior degrees or stages 
of metempsychoses, they are designed for the com- 
plete expiation and restoration of the unhappy spirits. 



* These Hindoo divinities are the personifications of the creative, 
the preservative, and^he retributive attributes of Parabrahma, 
They constitute the Trimurti or Hindoo trinity. Metaphysically 
analyzed, Brahma is the unreflected or unevolved proto^oneus 
state of divinity — the Father; Vichnou, the evolved or reflected 
state of divinity — the Son ; and Siva, the reconversion of the 
Son or non-protogoneus divinity into the Father — the Holy 
Ghost. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 125 

To Moisasur too, the means of repentance were vouch- 
safed, but he obstinately persisted in his disloyalty ; 
enlarged the limits of his satanic empire ; and even 
strove to seduce the penitents from their renewed 
allegiance. The human soul having emanated from 
the pleroma or mundane soul, all those who shall 
assiduously exercise their reason by divine contem- 
plation, may attain so great a degree of perfection 
that immediately after death, they shall be qualified 
to reenter or be reabsorbed into it; while those who 
do not make such progress in amelioration, pass 
again either into human or animal bodies ; the retri- 
bution of good and bad deeds, is like the ocean bil- 
low, — no one can stay it! Finally, after the con- 
summation of the present order of things, Siva will 
issue forth like a burning flame, and consume the 
world.* 

The dogmas and customs of the people of the 
Nile, in reference to a future state, deserve a con- 
cise, yet careful investigation. The dead of the 
Egyptians were subject to a twofold judicial investi- 
gation, before their present or future destiny could 
be decided. As soon as a person had expired, the 
members of his caste assembled around his corpse, 
and pronounced him worthy or unworthy of the 
honor of embalming and the solemn rites of sepul- 
ture, agreeably to the tenor of his past life. Prior 
to his admission into Amenthes,f — the Egyptian 

* Politz. 

f Amenthes signifies ades, zopJws, or erebos — inferum sedes : 
occidens and darkness, or the infernal regions. The f elds of the 
blessed of the Egyptians, were located in the Lybian desert, at the 
distance of a seven-days' journey west of Thebes. 
11* 



126 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Hades, the dead had to appear before the tribunal 
of the great god Osiris, the omnipotent judge and 
lord of the dead, who determined his fate in the 
spirit-world in conformity to the principles and char- 
acter of his life. The last solemn judgment scene, 
as it was symbolically depicted by the ancient 
Egyptians, according to the " Descriptions and An- 
tiquities of Egypt," by the French savans, is thus 
represented in a wall painting, in the temple of Isis 
at Thebes. 

The dead is conducted by the goddess Isis to the 
supreme judge, Osiris. A balance appears in the 
tablature which is accurately adjusted by two hiero- 
glyphical personages, who are no doubt intended to 
symbolize the scrupulous exactness with which Osi- 
ris awards his sentence upon the arraigned mortals. 
On this scale of equal justice, are weighed the good 
and bad qualities or actions of the deceased, and the 
result carefully noted down by Hermes or Thoth, — 
the Egyptian Mercury, — in the presence of Osiris. 
A priest and priestess intercede with Isis in behalf 
of the anxious, trembling souls : a beautiful trait of 
pagan humanity! A lotus flower, containing four 
mummy-like figures, composes a part of the scene, 
and is intended as the symbol of immortality. The 
god Harpocrates, who seemed to be charged with 
the execution of the Osirian sentence, assumes his 
place in the grand and solemn drama, with a flail in 
one hand and a pastoral crook in the other. Upon 
an altar before Harpocrates, is mounted a monster, 
composed of the body of a lion and the head of a 
boar, pierced by an arrow, and which some authors 
suppose to represent the soul of the dead in the pres- 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 127 

ence of its dread and omniscient judge, while others, 
with more probability of truth, recognize in it the 
prototype of the Grecian Cerberus or dog of hell. In 
Amenthes the souls were purified and cleansed under 
the salutary instructions and guidance of the mild 
but inflexible Osiris : for the souls, however blame- 
less and holy they might be, having once inhabited 
a material or mortal body, were more or less pollut- 
ed, and needed expiation. Amenthes was therefore 
a place of repentance and amelioration, and all de- 
pended upon the docility and moral perfectibility of 
the sonl while it existed under the parental tuition 
of Osiris, to render its future transmigratory cycle, 
after its discharge from the Amenthean abode, pleas- 
ant or disagreeable, and of a longer or shorter dura- 
tion, and accordingly enter either into the body of a 
new-born child or that of some animal : transmigra- 
tion to a greater or less extent, was the inexorable 
doom of every soul ; ay, it was the kuklos andgkes — 
the inevitable cycle. They however, who had led 
wicked lives, or been prone to flesh and sense in their 
pre- Amenthean state of existence, and who proved 
incorrigible at the expiration of their probatory 
period, had to pass through all the diversified grades 
of transmigration from the lowest form of sentient, 
organic life to that of man, before they could pre- 
sume to indulge a hope of final salvation. Accord- 
ing to Herodotus, the Egyptians were the first peo- 
ple who taught that the soul of man, upon the de- 
composition of the body, entered into the bodies of 
inferior animals ; that having passed through all the 
animal forms of life, it at last assumed a human 
body; and that this metempsychosis: perhaps it 



128 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

would be more proper to say metensomatosis — 
change of body, was accomplished in the space of 
three thousand years. This trans migratory process 
of human development, could be curtailed, though 
as we have seen already, not entirely prevented, by 
the embalming of the dead ; for as long as the ele- 
mentary parts of the body adhered together, the 
soul continued to remain in it. Hence the origin of 
the . art of embalming, and the existence of mum 
mies.* 

It is admitted upon the best authorities, that an 
cient Egypt was inhabited by priests and nomades, 
who, if they were not distinct races, were at least 
antipodal to each other in their manners and intel- 
lectual attainments : these were ignorant barbarians ; 
those, men of varied and superior knowledge as well 
as of more refined habits. The latter taught the im- 
mortality of the soul under the name of palingenisia, 
— a return of it to the celestial spheres, or its reabsorp- 
tion into the Supreme Being, without regard to the 
doctrine or the necessity of transmigration; while 
they communicated the same important truth to the 
former under the name and form of a metempsy- 
chosis, as these rude, illiterate hordes could have no 
idea of the existence of the soul without the body. 
It appears from Ossian that to have no funeral elegy 



* Osiris was the first mummy, and was buried in the catacomb 
of Abydus in upper Egypt : priests, kings, and nobles were emu- 
lous to have sepulture there, and to repose in death near the great 
god Osiris. There were numerous catacombs in Egypt, some of 
which were of vast extent. The most celebrated were those of 
Thebes on the west side of the Nile towards the Lybian desert ; 
of Memphis in lower Egypt ; of Lycopolis, etc. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 129 

sung over his tomb, was regarded among the Celtic 
nations, as the greatest calamity which could befall 
a mortal, as in such a case his soul could not be ad- 
mitted into the airy halls of his fathers. How sadly 
significant, therefore, are the words, " No bard sang 
over Erin's king." After death, they expected to 
follow employments similar to those which had 
amused or occupied them in this life — to fly with 
their friends on the wings of the clouds, in pursuit of 
airy deer, and to listen to the chants of the bards who 
should resound their praises. The Norse kingdom 
of the dead, called hel, from Hela, the goddess of 
Helheim or the infernal regions, and the impersona- 
tion of death and hell respectively, is situated in the 
higher latitudes of the polar regions. Its inmates 
may be seen and conversed with, but a deliverance 
from it before the time fixed by fate, is impossible ; 
yet the living and the dead can keep up a mnemonic 
correspondence. When Baldur, the Apollo of the 
Scandinavians, died, his wife Nanna accompanied 
him to Hela, and while her celestial consort sent his 
ring draupnir to Odin as a keepsake, by the hands 
of Hermod, who had come from Asgard, the abode 
of the gods, to procure his liberation, she made him 
the bearer of a linen cassock and other splendid 
gifts to Frigga, the fair spouse of the stern god, and 
of a gold finger-ring to Fulla.* 

* It deserves to be remarked in this place, that the cold and 
cheerless regions of Hela, to which those who died a natural death 
descended, were not regarded as places of punishment, the sojourn 
in them being doomed merely to a negation of that rude kind of 
celestial bliss reserved exclusively for the chosen heroes. Eating 
and drinking appear to have been observed in the hall of Hela, 



130 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

" It was the firm conviction of the ancient Ger- 
mans," writes Gibbon, " that a life spent in arms, 
and a glorious death in battle, were the best prepara- 
tions for a happy futurity, either in this or in an- 
other world." " The things which a German valued 
most," says Murphy, in a note on Tacitus, " were his 
arms and his horse. These were added to the fune- 
ral pile, with the persuasion that the deceased would 
have the same delight in his new state of existence." 
To sit in the hall of Odin — the Elysium of the 
Teutonic nations, known in Gothic mythology under 
the euphonic appellation of Valhalla, and quaff the 
flowing goblets of mead and ale, was an idea ever 
present to the minds of the Gothic warriors ; and to 
obtain this glorious distinction, inspired a contempt 
of danger, and the most daring and invincible cour- 
age.* This theme, so pregnant in the most attractive 
fiction, whose object is the promotion of virtue with 
the hope of a just reward, and which is at once so ad 
liomonem and ingenuous, is far from being exhausted, 
and therefore awaits a more prolix elucidation. 

The doctrine of future rewards and punishments, 
according to the mythological creed of the Scandi- 



much in the same manner as in that of Odin. In the Alvis-mal, 
mention is made of a kind of corn which grows in the infernal 
regions, and it is stated that the drink which men call ale, is known 
there under the name of mead. Whatever may be the real condi- 
tion of souls in a fiery hell, it is certain that the shades in the frosty 
halls of Hela — the gelid hell of the Norse people, are far from 
being in a condition which is utterly deplorable. Ilermod, for in- 
stance, finds Baldur mounted upon an elevated seat, and both pass 
the evening very comfortably. — Northern Antiquities* 
* Beloe on Herodotus. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 131 

navian branch of the Teutonic race, who, under the 
respective appellations of Danes, Swedes, Norwe- 
gians, and Icelanders, inhabit that portion of North- 
ern Europe, anciently known as Scandinavia, at- 
tained that elaborate expansion, and nice arrange- 
ment of parts, which almost gives it the precision 
and entitles it to the rank of a system ; and being 
moreover, a fair type of the mythic faith of the Ger- 
manic division of this great family of nations, in re- 
spect to a future life and retribution, a notice of it 
in this place, cannot consistently be omitted. It ex- 
pressly distinguishes two different abodes for the 
meritorious, and as many for the culpable. Of those, 
the first was the celebrated palace of Odin, named, 
as it has been stated already, Valhalla, where that 
august divinity received all such as died a violent 
death, from the beginning to the end of the world ; 
that is, to the time of that universal desolation of 
nature, which was to be followed by a new creation, 
and what the Norse people called Ragnarok or the 
twilight of the gods. The second was recognized 
under the name of Gimli ; that is, the palace covered 
with gold, which, after the renovation of all things, 
was to be the eternal home of the just, where they 
were to enjoy extatic and perennial delights. Gimli * 
is in heaven, signifies heaven, nay, is heaven itself, 
and of all the habitations of the blessed, it deservedly 
ranks the highest, and inspires the most impassioned 



* Grimm observes that in the Edda, Gimli is the dative case, 
a gimli, and he thinks that the nominative was gimill, and had the 
same signification as himill, Himmel, and heaven. — Northern An- 
tiquities. 



132 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

aspirations* In respect to the two places which 
were designed for the infliction and endurance of 
primitive justice, they distinguished the first by the 
name of Niflheim — the nebulous home, which was 
only to continue till the renovation of the world, 
when it was to be seperseded by the second, desig- 
nated by the term Nastrona — the strand or shore 
of the dead, which was to endure for ever. In this 
Plutonian region, there is a vast and appalling struc- 
ture with doors facing the cold, sombre north, and 
formed entirely of serpents, wattled together like 
wicker-work, with their heads and forked tongues 
turned towards the inside of the hall, and which con- 
tinually vomit forth floods of venom, in which all 
those are obliged to wade who so far forget the obli- 
gations of the moral law, as to commit murder or to 
forswear themselves ! 

Valhalla — the hall of the chosen, like Niflheim, 
was only to exist till the conflagration of the world. 
Those only whose blood had been shed in battle, 
might presume to aspire to the enjoyments and dis- 
tinctions, which Odin prepared for them in this stately 
mansion of ghostly daring and sensua-celestial de- 
lights. Such martial ideas of future bliss, show 
plainly enough what the Scandinavians most relished 
in this life. " The heroes," says the Edda, " who 



* Beside Valhalla and Gimli, there were two halls, which also 
afforded abodes of bliss to the righteous and well-minded. One 
was called Brimir, which was located in that region of heaven de- 
nominated Okolni : all who delighted in quaffing good drink, could 
find an abundant supply in it. The other was known as a gor- 
geous mansion of ruddy gold : it was named Sindri, and stood on 
the mountains of Nida. 



IN ITS POPULAR DEVELOPMENT. 133 

are received into the palace of Odin, have every day 
the pleasure of arming themselves, of passing in re- 
view, of ranging themselves in order of battle, and 
,of cutting one another in pieces ; but as soon as the 
hour of repast approaches, they return on horseback 
all safe and sound to the hall of Odin, and fall to 
eating and drinking. Though the number of them 
cannot be counted, the flesh of the boar Saehrimnir 
is sufficient for them all ; every day it is served up 
at table, and every day it is renewed again to its 
original bulk : * their beverage is ale and mead ; one 
single goat, whose milk is excellent mead, furnishes 
enough of that liquor to intoxicate all the heroes. 
Odin alone drinks wine, the only fermented liquid 
to the use of which his good taste or his superior 
dignity invites his attention. A crowd of virgins 
wait upon the heroes at table, and fill their cups as 
fast as they empty them." 

Every land of death except such as was of a 



* The ancients taught a prima materia in the graves, which 
survived corruption, and constituted the first germ of a new life. 
It was defined as an oily, tallow-like, and seedy matter, and be- 
lieved to be the ovary of materia-generative existence. Oil or 
fat in man and animals, as a life-giving element, embraced in its 
genial efficacy the present and the future world. This physio- 
psychological hypothesis explains the reason why the shades in 
Valjialla feasted so freely on the fat of the boar, and why the first 
material life which appeared in a stone, was commemorated in the 
anointing of stones, pillars, etc., with oil or butter. Deucalion and 
Pyrrha formed men out of stones, and the German Leute, is de- 
rived from the Greek lithos, a stone, as is laos, the people, from las, 
which also signifies a stone. Again, Spuck is etymologically de- 
duced from Speck, fat, and is the prima materia resisting resolution 
into ex-homo and absolute spiritual life. — G. 
12 



134 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

violent nature, incurred in war or single combat, 
was considered by these Norse warriors as igno- 
minious, and unworthy of Teutonic fame ; and hence, 
whoever dared to make his' exit out of this world in 
the natural way, was inevitably doomed to the shad- 
owy, dismal abodes of Niflheim. Niflheim — so 
dreary, so preternaturally terrific, was a region of al- 
most illimitable dimensions, and consisted of no less 
than nine worlds, which were reserved for those that 
died of disease or old age. It was here where Hela, 
or death, exercised her despotic power with the most 
extreme rigor, and under circumstances the most ap- 
palling ; her palace was Anguish ; her table Famine ; 
her waiters responded to the names of Slowness and 
Delay ; Precipice was the threshold of her door ; 
Care her bed ; she herself was livid and ghastly pale ; 
and her very looks inspired sentiments of lasting and 
profound horror.* 

* Northern Antiquities. 



BOOK II. 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION 



IN ITS 



SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



PROLOGUE 



To be intelligible, a few of the predominant phrases, used in 
this part of the work, need elucidation. Such are symbol, alle- 
gory, and mytlws. A symbol is a sensible sign, involving a logical 
conclusion. Thus lightning and other meteoric phenomena are 
symbols, as are also the omens drawn from the significant flight 
and striking conduct of birds deemed sacred. The metaphorical 
representations in the sacred mysteries ; as the fawn-skin in which 
the initiated were clothed ; the cicade which they wore in their 
hair; the purple carpets which covered their apartments, were 
symbols of occult truths. Moreover, the language and signs of 
recognition in vogue among them, together with the formulas 
which they employed in the discharge of their mysterious func- 
tions, passed under the name of symbol, or a cognate term, such 
as sunthema. In its theological application, the symbol represents 
divine truth in the image or sign. Its distinctive character, as a 
medium of intelligence, is a definite and direct appeal to the hu- 
man mind. There are various kinds of symbols, and they are 
either natural or artistic. Thus the sculptured or painted images 
of the gods, are plastic symbols; while animals furnish the zoonic, 
and plants the phytonic symbols. Phonetic symbols are based 
upon sound, and tones and language are their organs of expres- 
sion ; and the aphonetic are those which are destitute of the 
acoustic attributes. An allegory considered, not as a figure of 
speech, but as a token or emblematical representation of an act 
or event, implies a hidden thought, or an arbitrary sign or device. 
12* (137) 



138 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

The distinction between a symbolical and an allegorical represen- 
tation, may be briefly thus defined : the latter simply imports a 
general conception, or conveys an idea which differs from itself, 
and of which it is not the exponent but merely the index ; 
whereas the former is itself the embodied idea rendered percep- 
tible to the senses. There a representation, properly speaking, 
exists : an icon, or image, is given, but the idea contained in it or 
the truth which it is designed to convey, instead of being ex- 
pressed is only implied, and must, therefore, be determined by a 
knowledge of the laws or the nature of hieroglyphics. Here this 
idea has descended into the corporeal world, and we perceive it 
immediately and at once in the idol or form which it assumes. In 
one word, in the symbol there is an instantaneous revelation ; in 
the allegory, a circumlocution in the solution of its significance. 
Finally, the allegory comprises the mythos, which the symbol does 
not. The Greek mythos, anglicized into myth, is synonymous 
with the German Gemiith, and signifies, etymologically, the undis- 
closed thoughts of the soul. It is divided into two parts, and 
either includes ancient events, in which case it is called Saga, or 
narration ; or, ancient faith and doctrine, when it is denominated 
tradition. 

The characteristic trait of the myth is to convert reflections 
into history, or actual occurrences. As in the epos, so in the myth, 
the historical element predominates. Facts often constitute the 
basis of the myth, and with these religious ideas are interwoven, 
Or in other words, divine truth like the fire of Prometheus, is 
brought down from heaven into the tangible sphere of human 
events. Considered practically, it is applicable to statements or 
accounts generally, and may be true or false like any other com- 
munication. In process of time, a distinction was made between 
logos — a saying or report, and mythos, when the former im- 
parted a true, and the latter a fabulous, narration. Lastly, a myth 
may be of a mixed nature, or partly true and partly fictitious. 
In such a case, it was said to be a myth in which truth was mir- 
rored forth, or that there was logos in mythos ; that is, truth in 
fiction. 



DIVISION I 



THE ASTRONOMICAL GODS, OR PHYSIC O-ASTRO- 
NOMICAL THEOLOGY.* 



SECTION I. 

THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION. 



CHAPTER I. 

OSIRIS AND ISIS, TYPHON AND NEPHTHTS. 

Before I proceed to remove the mystic veil of 
ages from the gods and the religion of antiquity, it 
is deemed expedient briefly to show that the very 
root and essence of the theology of the ancients, 



* To classify the gods of antiquity with any degree of rigid 
precision, I hold to be impracticable ; for, though a broad line of 
distinction is drawn around some of them, others have many 
functions and attributes in common, while, at the same time, they 
materially differ in other respects. Whoever, therefore, may feel 
so disposed, can dispense with the systematic distinctions which 
the author has attempted to establish, and pursue his mytho- 
religious contemplations by simply regarding the gods in the light 
of their national or individual peculiarities. 

/ (139) 



140 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

as far as myth or history has made us acquainted 
with their creeds and their worship, is a thoroughly 
digested system of emanation and evolution : God 
manifest in the flesh ; and not merely in the abstract ; 
as, wisdom, goodness, power, justice, but also in the 
concrete ; as, King, Saviour, Creator, destroyer, etc. 
A beautiful idea, full of truth and significance^ It 
has already flashed across the path of our vision, 
and will still continue to be reflected in our future 
investigations, and to shine with a sufficiently strong 
light to establish it as a primary feature in mytho- 
logical faith. (Wha t, it may be asked, is good or 
great, fair or interesting on earth or in heaven, that 
is not of God ? What is the vast, multitudinous 
universe, but the fulness of Him that filleth all in all? 
A universality of divine life and power in creation, is 
clearly taught by the inspired Apostle, in the nervous 
and lofty sentence, " There is one God and Father 
of all, who is above all, and through all : and in you 
all" The belief or doctrine that all is of God and 
therefore is divine, or that preternatural energies 
everywhere manifest themselves in man and world- 
controlling influences, was the first article of faith 
among men ; the alpha and the omega of their relig- 
ious convictions, as we have shown on former occa- 
sions. The obliteration of this truth from the soul, 
a doubt of it, or even only an unconscious, wavering 
conviction of its reality, is a forfeiture of innocence ; 
is sin ; is the fall of man and of angelsT) 

As to the Typhons, the Ahrimans, the Moisasurs, 
etc., the personifications of physical and moral evil, 
what are they, considered in the latter capacity, but 
the symbolized instrumentalities of the development 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 141 

of true life, the homely handmaids of the only feasi- 
ble happiness among finite spirits? and, in the 
former, but good often misunderstood, or the un- 
pleasant and frequently painful manifestations of 
nature, which are the primary and indispensable 
conditions of the production of much, if not all, that 
is useful or admirable in cosmic organization ? They 
may prove hurtful now, eventually they will bless. 
Man, in his ignorance, may deprecate, in his wisdom 
he cannot but admire and appreciate them. The 
poet-author of the " Essay on Man," with the excep- 
tion, perhaps, of his idea of the deviation of nature, 
as philosophically as evangelically thus interprets the 
nature and end of evil : — 

" What makes all physical or moral ill ? 
There deviates nature, and here wanders will. 
God sends not ill, if rightly understood, 
Or partial ill is universal good, 
Or change admits, or nature lets it fall, 
Short, and but rare, till man improv'd it all." 

Devils, we have seen, will not always be devils ; 
and present evil, wisely estimated and prudently en- 
dured, is but the embryo of future good. Did not 
light spring up in primeval darkness ? and the fair- 
proportioned, illimitable universe once lay wrapt 
in the swaddlingclothes of grim, impassive chaos ? 
Even the petition, so full of hope and promise, " De- 
liver us from evil," is, at least to some extent, a stand- 
ing guaranty of this truth. Though Osiris the good 
should be oppressed, nay, even deprived of life, yet 
will he rise triumphantly over all the Ty phonic and 
Plutonic powers. Nevertheless, without their exist- 
ence it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to rec- 
ognize him as the good god. 



142 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

X^ Osiris and Isis are the two principal deities, or dei- 
fied personifications of nature, especially in its astro- 
nomical attributes, among the ancient Egyptians. 
Genealogy traces their descent to Chronos and Rhea, 
or according to some mythologists, to Jupiter and 
Rhea. Their social relation was sanctified and 
strengthened by the connubial tie, but owing to the 
adverse periodical changes inherent in their natures 
and dynasty, — the unpropitious phases which nature 
assumes in the course of its annual revolution, both 
their domestic felicity and regal prosperity were often 
painfully interrupted, and the mythic account of their 
lives and reign includes passages of unparalleled 
trials and sufferings. 

Osiris symbolized the sun and the Nile, Isis the 
moon and Egypt ; and both, the solar year. The god 
was worshipped under the form of an ox or opis: 
strictly speaking, under that of taurus, properly so 
called, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac ; and 
the goddess, under that of a cow. According to her 
Egyptian votaries, Isis was the first of the deities 
who called the attention of the human race to the 
cultivation of wheat, barley, and other cereal grains ; 
while her celestial consort introduced the plough, the 
hoe, the spade, and other agricultural implements to 
the notice of mortals. He enjoyed, also, the envi- 
able reputation of having been the first god who 
taught man how to break the ox to the plough ; and 
to his prudent foresight and beneficent care the 
institution of civil laws and religious worship, among 
the people of the Nile, owed its origin. After he had 
accomplished a salutary reform at home, Osiris re- 
solved to go forth and spread the blessings of civili- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 143 

zation in other parts of the earth. During his ab- 
sence, the regency of his kingdom was confided to 
the hands of the beloved Isis. He travelled into dif- 
ferent countries, and by means of music and moral 
suasion alone, everywhere succeeded to instil into 
the minds of mankind the principles of knowledge ; 
to instruct them in the faith and service of the gods ; 
and to disseminate among them the fruits of those 
useful agrarian inventions and municipal improve- 
ments, so essential to the social prosperity of na- 
tions. 

On his return, Osiris found the minds of his sub- 
jects agitated : his wicked brother Typhon, grown 
presumptuous in consequence of his protracted ab- 
sence, and thinking it to be a favorable opportunity 
to seize the reins of government, now grown slack 
in the feeble grasp of the goddess queen, he boldly 
scattered the baleful seeds of sedition among the peo- 
ple ; but the vigilant Isis manifested a courage and 
provident assiduity, at this critical juncture of the 
commonwealth, which for the present disconcerted 
all his wily plans, and completely baffled his perfidi- 
ous attempts to breed disaffection among her sub- 
jects, and gradually prepare them for a general revolt. 
Typhon, the hateful author of all the malignant con- 
catenation of causes and influences in nature, un- 
abashed by his recent defeat, and still resolved upon 
the execution of his contemplated treachery, now en- 
tered into a league with seventy -two Devs^ all mem- 
bers of his own depraved and mischievous family, 
and besides, formed a treaty of alliance with her 
sable majesty of Ethiopia, queen Aso. Thus rein- 
forced, the chief of the conspirators determined no 



144 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

longer to wage an inglorious or unprofitable war 
against an enemy whom he affected to despise, or 
sought to subdue by the infliction of a wound, which 
should be deep and painful in proportion as it was 
unexpected, and therefore unavoidable, but to con- 
tend for the prize of life and of empire with Osiris 
himself. To accomplish his atrocious ends with 
more facility, he assumed the mask of friendship, and 
probably still further hiding his new scheme of villany 
under the specious semblance of remorse, he invited 
his unsuspecting victim to a feast* which he pretend- 
ed, was especially designed to do him honor. Mean- 
while, the fratricidal wretch had had a superb ark, or 
chest, prepared, which, while the unsuspecting guests 
were merrily enjoying the festive entertainment, was 
suddenly set down before them, and promised as a 
present to him whose body should exactly correspond 
to its dimensions : the chest had been made after the 
measure of Osiris' s body clandestinely obtained ! All 
having tried the novel experiment without success, it 
remained for Osiris to lie down in it, which he had 
no sooner done, than Typhon and his infamous col- 
leagues rushed to the spot, closed the lid, and the 
more effectually to secure it, circumfused it with lead. 
After this daring and flagitious achievement, they 
threw it into the Nile, whence it was conveyed into 
the sea, through the Tanitic mouth of that river. 
Thus died the saviour Osiris, by the brutal hands 
of his unfeeling brother, on the seventeenth day of 
the month Athyr, the thirteenth day of November, 
and in the twenty-eighth year of his age or reign ! 
No sooner had this horrible deed been perpetrated, 
than Pan and the Satyrs ran through Egypt in all 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 145 

directions, and with the most heart-rending cries and 
lamentations, proclaimed the sudden and untimely 
fate of the great god. 

At Chemmis, Isis received the doleful tidings. 
The most impassioned wailings attested the inten- 
sity of her sorrow and the greatness of her loss. 
Frantically she beats her anguished breast ; cuts off 
a lock of her hair, and deposits it in the place as a 
memorial of the tragic event ; puts on mourning ap- 
parel ; and sets out to seek the body of her murdered 
husband. Everywhere she makes anxious inquiries, 
and at last children inform her of the place where 
she might presume to find the precious remains of 
the lost one. 

An incident which occurred during the lifetime of 
Osiris, and which might have created considerable 
disturbance in families composed of mere mortals, 
and governed by purely human principles, proved 
highly advantageous to the bereft and disconsolate 
Isis. Typhon had a sister known under the appella- 
tion of Nephthys, who was also his wife. It hap- 
pened, on a certain occasion, that Osiris, who lived 
under the same roof with his Typhonian kindred, 
mistook Nephthys for his lawful spouse, and the con- 
sequence was the birth of a son, named Anubis, wise 
and good like his illustrious sire, but of the nature 
and with the head of a dog. This singular creature 
Isis makes her confident ally, and both now renew 
the tedious search after the dead body with redoubled 
zeal. For a long time their endeavors prove fruit- 
less ; for scarcely had the encased god been driven 
among the bulrushes near Byblus, on the Phoenician 
coast, when a latent power of divinity, still residing 
13 



146 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

among his remains, so miraculously affected an indi- 
vidual of the erica-family of plants, that from a small 
shrub, it suddenly shot up into a lofty and majestic 
tree, whose ample trunk completely enclosed, and 
for some time entirely hid from view, the floating 
tomb of the defunct deity. At last Malcandros, king 
of Phoenicia, happening to take a walk on the mys- 
terious strand, and struck with the size and beauty 
of the erica, had it cut down and wrought into a 
pillar for his palace. Sacred birds and Anubis an- 
nounce this fact to Isis. Oppressed with grief, and 
in the habit, and with the demeanor of a servant- 
maid, she sat down at a well before the walls of Byb- 
lus, where she was discovered by the queen's maids 
of honor. While plaiting her hair, she indulged in a 
brief conversation with these fair damsels. No 
sooner had the latter returned to their royal mistress, 
than the whole palace was filled with the most deli- 
cious odors. They now related their interview with 
the interesting stranger, and observe that in the 
adornment of her hair, she had made use of a very 
fragrant and precious ointment. The queen im- 
mediately sent for her, and happening to have an 
infant son, she hesitated not to appoint Isis to be his 
nurse. Instead of giving the child the breast as she 
was expected to do, she presumed to discharge her as- 
sumed maternal duty, by simply introducing her fore- 
finger into his mouth. In the night, when all were 
buried in profound sleep, she laid the scion of royalty 
into the fire, in whose burning flames she sought to 
purify him from the dross and pollution of his ma- 
terial nature. The little ward grew with superhu- 
man rapidity, and it was not long before the suspi- 



W ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 147 

cion of the vigilant mother was aroused. She re- 
solved closely to watch the ambiguous conduct of 
the nurse during the night ; she did so ; saw the fiery 
purgation ; and uttered a piercing cry. Thus detect- 
ed, Isis reveals her divinity in thunder and lightning, 
and a sheet of refulgent light fills the stately man- 
sion. The goddess now approaches the erica-pillar, 
and with one tremendous stroke from her hand, shiv- 
ers it in pieces. The wood she generously gives to 
the king, and it is known as the wood of grace. 
Around the long lost and now found remains of her 
husband, the bereft and wretched Isis indulges her 
grief to such a degree, that the oldest son of the king 
died from the mingled emotions of pity and fright ! 
Hence in all the countries bordering upon the shores 
of the Nile, might be heard reechoing the funeral 
dirge of Maneros. The corpse of the deceased Osi- 
ris is brought back in triumph, and the piety and 
hope of the Egyptians are once more reconciled to 
the decrees of fate. 

The healing influence of time gradually assuaged 
the violence of Isis's sorrow; and fierce revenge, or 
at least a keen sense of retributive justice, now as- 
sumed the place of depressing woe. Horus, or Orus, 
the son of an injured mother and a murdered father, 
is the only remaining member of this august family, 
who is qualified to assert its rights and avenge its 
wrongs. During the calamitous events above re- 
lated, this promising youth resided in the city of 
Buto, where he prosecuted his arduous and interest- 
ing studies under the superintendence of a learned 
and faithful female friend. Towards this place, Isis 
directs her tottering steps, and, bearing with her the 



148 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

body of her adored spouse, cautiously hides it in a 
lonely spot in the thickets of the forest. Alas ! for- 
tune is known only by its instability. Typhon — 
cruel hunter! announces a chase, and this leads to 
the discovery of the secreted treasure. The lid is 
removed, and this terrible Nimrod of the Nile, fall- 
ing upon the inanimate mass with the insatiate fury 
of a tiger, cuts it up into fourteen pieces. The 
news of this new outrage soon reached the ears of 
Isis, — the cup of whose affliction could only be 
drained when it overflowed ; preparing for the worst, 
yet hoping for the best, she again sets out to recover 
at all hazards, and at every sacrifice, the dismem- 
bered corpse of the ill-fated god. To facilitate her 
progress, and insure success to her enterprise, she 
takes the precaution to embark in a papyrus-boat, 
and steering through all. the seven mouths of the 
Nile, has the good luck to find thirteen pieces of the 
mangled remains, but the fourteenth, the virilites, 
eludes the most vigilant search. Unfortunately, 
the blue waters of the Nile had borne it into the 
sea, and what is still worse, certain fishes — ever 
since deemed accursed — had the audacity or the 
misfortune to devour it ! 

Instead, however, of yielding to despair, she 
evinces a fortitude superior to the frailties of her 
sex, and resolves to profit by her partial good for- 
tune, without repining at a loss which her skill 
might, in some measure, repair. Accordingly she re- 
placed the recovered parts with the accuracy of a 
practical anatomist, and the missing portion she 
supplied by a fac-simile made of the wood of the 
sycamore. To commemorate this astounding feat, 



IX ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 149 

the plastic goddess founded the phallus-mystery ; and 
the body of Osiris thus restored, was conveyed to 
Phila,* where it was honored with sepulchral rites, 
and since that time, Phila has been the grand mor- 
tuary of Egypt. There gorgeous temples arose, and 
thither devout pilgrimages were made, in glorifica- 
tion of the entombed deity. 

The decisive moment for retribution had now 
arrived, and the powerful Horus, born of Isis at a 
period in life when his father was still in the full 
vigor of manhood, stood ready to inflict condign 
punishment upon the remorseless slayer of his father- 
god. Osiris appears to him from Amenthes ; tests 
his capacity for the execution of so arduous a task ; 
and, convinced of his ability, bids him vindicate his 
fame, and maintain the integrity of the ancient laws. 
Thus summoned to guide "the helm of State, and to 
defend the rights of his people, and the hopes of his 
house, the gallant youth collects a valiant host of 
loyal combatants from all the cantons of Egypt, and 
boldly prepares to meet the rebel foe. Meanwhile 
the usurper was not idle, but rallying his native 
troops under his standard, and hastily collecting his 
foreign auxiliaries, he placed himself at the head of 
his formidable forces, determined to wrest by force 
what he could not obtain by intrigue or deceit. . A 
battle ensues, and justice triumphs over wrong. 
Typhon, the vile instigator of so much disorder, 



* Phila, also written Philoe, is an ancient town in ruins, sit- 
uated in an island of the Xile bearing the same name, where this 
river enters Egypt. Phila is celebrated for its splendid architec- 
tural remains, hieroglyphical svmbols, and lapidary inscriptions. 

13* 



150 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

crime, and misery, falls alive into the hands of the 
victor ; but strange as it may seem, Isis releases the 
savage captive ! This act of unseasonable clem- 
ency so enrages Horus, that, in the violence of his 
passion, he 'snatches the glittering diadem from the 
head of his mother. Hermes, ever fertile in re- 
sources, substitutes the hide of a cow with the horns 
of an ox in the place of it, and this bovisal decora- 
tion has ever since been the distinguishing symbol 
of the goddess. 

The consequences of the imprudent liberation of 
Typhon soon became apparent, and he repaid the 
magnanimity of Isis according to the most approved* 
principles of satanism. Assuming the contemptible 
office of a traducer, he convoked an assembly of 
homogeneous spirits; and with an effrontery une- 
qualled in myth or history, contested the legitimacy 
of Horus. The attempt, however, proved futile, and 
branded as a liar, he and his confederates in iniquity 
were banished into the neighboring deserts. As for 
Horus, he formally ascended the throne of his ances- 
tors, and was the last among a long and illustrious 
line of gods who reigned over Egypt. Human 
rulers now succeeded;* yet Isis gave birth to a pos- 
thumous child, named Harpocrates, the mysterious 
offspring of the mangled remains of Osiris : he was 
the son of pain and affliction, and had the misfor- 
tune to be lame and of a feeble constitution. 



* According to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, king Menes 
reigned in Egypt immediately after the gods ; and in his time, we 
are told by the former historian, the whole area of Egypt, except 
the province of Thebes, was a vast, dreary expanse of marsh. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 151 

PARAGRAPH I. 

The Interpretation of the Myth, or the Egyptian Year. 

The ancient Egyptian calendar divides the solar 
year into the civil and the natural, or agrarian year. 
The former was calculated with mathematical accu- 
racy, and was composed of twelve months, each 
containing thirty days, "with the addition of five 
intercalary days. The appearance of Sirius at the 
summer solstice, led to a different beginning of the 
year, and gave rise to a more comprehensive period 
of time — the Sothis-period. It constituted the 
basis of sacerdotal astronomy, and determined the 
date of the sacred year. 

The allegorical myth which we have just had oc- 
casion to consider, is founded upon the climate of 
Egypt, and the agrarian pursuits of its inhabitants. 
The sequel will show that it is intimately connected 
with the annual revolution of time, and the different 
seasons to which it gives rise. The Egyptian year 
involves a twofold seed and harvest-time. The first 
embraces the vernal period of the year, and extends 
from February, when the grain is sown, to July, 
when it attains maturity; the second includes the 
autumnal division, in which an interval of time, 
reaching from the last of September to the latter 
part of November, marks the season of semination, 
which is succeeded in the following March by the 
golden harvest. Considered now as the Nile, then 
as the sun, Osiris, like Egypt's cereal grain, must 
die and revive twice a year ; and twice a year Isis is 



152 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

doomed to bewail his exit, or invited to rejoice at his 
return. The first death happens in the spring, from 
March till July, which is the season of glowing heat 
in Egypt ; herbs and grasses often wither and die ; 
the seeds of hope and of a new harvest frequently lie 
dormant in the earth for a long time, or the nascent 
seedlings pine under the ungenial influence of an 
arid atmosphere. Scorching winds blowing from the 
Lybian desert, essentially contribute to inflame and 
rarefy the ah*. Serpents and venomous insects mul- 
tiply to an alarming extent, and their fury and de- 
strnctiveness increase with their numbers. Fatal 
diseases rage under the most malignant types, and 
the intensely heated sky assumes a frightful, lurid- 
red hue, — the favorite color of Typhon. It is the 
unpropitious period of the year, when the malevolent 
god reigns paramount. Isis, the parched land of 
Egypt, languishes ; she utters lamentations of dis- 
tress ; and pitiable cries are sent to heaven for the 
ineffable blessings of water.* It is all in vain: the 

* " The situation of Egypt upon the globe makes it always 
warm; and at certain seasons the heat is intolerable. From 
March till November, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer 
rises in the shade to eighty-six or eighty-eight degrees. This 
being the case in the Delta, the heat is more intense in Upper 
Egypt, where the earth has little, and in some parts no vegetable 
clothing, but abounds in arid and burning rocks. In this situa- 
tion, the thermometer never indicates a lower temperature than 
fifty degrees, and seldom less than fifty-two, even in the coldest 
season of the year. This excessive heat is partly occasioned by 
the distance of Egypt from the ocean, and by the moderate height 
of its hills ; for in places nearer the line, where the mountains are 
high, the cool air, descending from the high regions, refreshes the 
country, and moderates the climate. And we may add, that the 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 153 

evil days must first pass away ; Osiris has not' yet 
waked up ; he sleeps a long and profound sleep 
among the sable Ethiopians, to whose country he 
has been banished, and where, besides, he is retained 
as a captive behind the rock-bound gate of the city 
of Elephantine, known in modern history as Ell-Sag. 
In this miserable plight, Osiris denotes the dwindled 
state of the Nile, now almost dried up, or wasted 
away to a feeble, sluggish rivulet. Alas! Egypt's 
great river can no longer supply the irrigating waters 
to the gaping canals: the quickening fluid tarries 
beyond the cataracts, where the tropical rains alone 
can swell and revive the stagnant and expiring 
stream. Isis, the grief-worn spouse, is the sister- 
earth wedded to Nile- Osiris, or Osiris in his vernal 
death, and pining under a consuming drought. 
Typhon appears in this tragic scene of nature as the 
envious, wicked brother ; the cruel tyrant who, in the 
fierceness of his wrath, impels his fire-breathing, 
furiously bellowing steers — the burning winds, 
through the desert.* He has entered into a conspir- 



air is never cooled by copious rains ; for if we except occasional 
showers on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, which happen in 
the months of December, January, and February, scarcely a drop 
of rain falls through all the extent of Egypt. A slight shower in 
any other part of that vast country is a rare occurrence, and sel- 
dom seen by the most aged and observing." — The American 
Edition of the New Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. 

* The Etesian winds must not be confounded with the Lybian 
winds noticed in the text. They are north-easterly winds, which 
annually commence to blow about eight days before Sirius, or the 
dog-star, is visible above the horizon, and therefore the Greeks 
called them prodromi, or forerunners. They generally continue 



154 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

acy with Aso, the black queen of torrid Ethiopia ; 
that is, Ethiopia cooperates climatically with Ty- 
phon, or is Typhonic, inasmuch as in withholding 
its rains till the destined period, it prolongs the with- 
ering drought of Egypt, and aggravates the multi- 
plied misery of its sweltering inhabitants. This 
misery and that drought last seventy-two days, and 
these are metaphorically designated the Devs, deusii, 
or evil genii, with whom Typhon has associated his 
malversations and his fortunes. No sooner have 



during a period of forty days, and are said to be of a mild and 
genial nature.* 

The Lybian, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, the Sahara- 
Lybian winds, are thus described in " The American Edition of 
the New Edinburgh Encyclopedia : " " The comforts of Egypt 
are diminished, by being subject, in some degree, to that suffocat- 
ing wind of the deserts, which spreads terror and desolation. It 
is called the samiel, the simoon, and the cJiamsin. It is announced 
by a lowering, troubled sky, and sometimes by a hissing noise. 
Its heat may be compared to that of a newly opened oven, and its 
effects are always distressing, and sometimes insupportable. It 
hardens the skin, and destroys the vegetable growth. It affects 
the lungs by its pernicious qualities, produces convulsions, and 
sometimes death. It is felt in Africa, India, Syria, and Arabia ; 
and it reaches Italy in a more modified condition, where it is 
called the sirocco, and is guarded against with anxiety and care." 

Upon the authority of Pliny and others, I have applied the 
epithet north-eastemly to the Etesian winds, but Doctor Parish 
— apparently upon the authority of Bruce — describes them as 
the winds which blow all summer from the norili-west ! A distin- 
guished author calls them northern breezes, common in spring and 
autumn, and his designation seems to be that whiclfis nearest the 
truth. 

* Bcloc on Herodotus. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 155 

these trying days terminated than Osiris, the Nile, 
awakes from his deathlike lethargy. 

In short, Typhon is the personification of every 
evil, and as far as this prolific myth is concerned, 
especially of physical evil ; the Siny, or the withering, 
and consuming fire-demon, as Plutarch has perti- 
nently styled him. He is the unprincipled paramour 
of the dissolute Nephthys : the inimical Lybian 
desert, and the cragged, tempestuous sea-strand. 
These form the main provinces of his native empire. 
On the contrary, happy Egypt, or rather the valley 
of the Nile, luxuriant in verdant crops, and abound- 
ing in multiplied resources of wealth and social pros- 
perity, is the fair domain of the good mother Isis. 

Thus denned, Egypt is the Chemia; that is, the 
black country, so denominated on account of its 
rich black soil, at once moist and warm, and fertile 
to an almost incredible degree. 

Gibbon, writing of the agricultural resources of 
the Eastern empire, in the reign of the emperor Jus- 
tinian, thus refers to Egypt : " Abraham had been 
relieved by the well-known plenty of Egypt; the 
same country, a small and populous tract, was still 
capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and 
sixty thousand quarters of wheat for the use of Con- 
stantinople." 

Soon after the sun has entered the sign of the 
Scorpion, on the thirteenth of November, the au- 
tumnal mourning of the Egyptians begins ; for 
Osiris dies a second time by the hands of his blood- 
thirsty brother : it is still seed-time in a part of the 
country, and as the seed-grain in the earth dies — in 
its reproductive development — so Osiris, contem- 



156 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

plated as the retroceding sun, wanes in his power, or 
hyperbolically speaking, dies.* Sorrow and wailing 
spread gloom and dismay through the land ; and Isis 
may again be seen sallying forth in pursuit of her 
dead and missing spouse. The days are rapidly de- 
creasing ; night is in the ascendant ; the Delta, at 
least, is still more or less in a state of submersion ; 
and that invaluable gift of heaven, water, but re- 
cently hailed as the greatest blessing, begins already 
to be deprecated as an evil : the hope of many is 
still buried under the turbid floods of the Nile.f 



* Eberliard in his work, Der Gelst des Urchristenlhams, thus 
writes of Osiris : " In the sacred, symbolical language of the 
Egyptians, Osiris was the sun, the solar year, and the solar cycle. 
The end of the old, and the commencement of the new year, was 
announced in ail the temples of Egypt ; and therefore it was said 
that in every one of them was contained the grave of Osiris : the 
termination of the solar year. The conclusion of the old, and 
the beginning of the new division of annual, solar time, was 
ascertained through a year-gnom on, composing the statue of Mem- 
non, or Amenophis, with the article prefixed, PhamenopJiis. 1 Upon 
the mouth of this image fell, through a small aperture, a ray of 
the sun at the precise moment of time when the new year began. 
From the mouth of Memnon, therefore, the birth of the rising 
year was disclosed; and hence it was figuratively asserted that 
the statue of the god spoke, or made an oral declaration of the 
great astronomical fact." 

f The Egyptians ordinarily sowed their fields only after they 
had been prepared for the seed by the natural or artificial inun- 
dation of the Nile. Speaking of those Egyptians who inhabited 
that part of the valley of the Nile which is situated between 
Memphis and the Mediterranean Sea, Herodotus observes, " As 

1 This statue, according to Tooke, made of black marble, and set up in 
the temple of Scrapis at Thebes, performed also the function of a diurnal 
gnomon, and indicated the rising and the setting sun. — G. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT.' 157 

The myth of this physico-theologieal system at- 
tains considerable diversity of significance at this 



soon as the river has spread itself over their lands and returned 
to its bed, each man scatters the seed over his ground, and waits 
patiently for the harvest, without any other care than that of 
turning some swine into his fields to tread down the grain," etc. 
On this passage Beloe thus remarks : " Plutarch, Eudoxus, and 
Pliny relate the same fact, — about the swine treading down the 
grain. Valckenaer does not hesitate to consider it a fable in- 
vented by Herodotus ; and the sagacious Wesseling seems to be 
of the same opinion, though he has not rejected the expression. 
Gale, not thinking swine adapted to tread down the grain, has 
substituted oxen, because in Hesychius and Phavorinus the word 
us seems to signify an ox. My own opinion on this matter is, that 
Herodotus is mistaken only with regard to the time when they 
were admitted into the fields. It was probably before the corn 
was sown, that they might eat the roots of the aquatic plants, 
winch might prove an injury to the grain," etc. In his " Reisen 
durch Syrien, Palaestina, Acgypten, Nubien, naeh Arabien," 
Burkhard says of the people of Berbera in Africa, " They are 
partly nomades and partly tillers of the soil. After the inunda- 
tion, the latter sow all the land which has been overflowed, with 
Durra and some barley. A little before they sow, they dig up 
the earth with spades: the plough is not known among them." 
The grain chiefly cultivated in Egypt, was a species of spelt or 
amel-corn, commonly known as the seven-eared wheat. To ena- 
ble the stalk of this grain to support so great a weight, the Crea- 
tor has formed it with a compact pith, thus distinguishing it from 
the weak, hollow stem of the rest of the Iriticum family, and' ren- 
dering it sufficiently firm and strong to accomplish the end for 
which it is designed. Herodotus will throw additional light upon 
the estimation in which spelt was held among the Egyptians. 
" Wheat and barley," he writes, "are common articles of food in 
other countries, but they are in Egypt thought mean and dis- 
graceful ; the diet here consists principally" of spelt, a kind of 
corn which some call zea." 

14 



158 • THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

stage of its development, and it deserves to be further 
but briefly unfolded. Typhon, as the malignant god, 
is now the hated Nile ; and as the obscurer of the 
sun, he is winter. Osiris — the beneficent principle 
of generation, is languishing; ay, slain by Nile — 
Typhon. Again, Osiris the recovered, or considered 
as the sun during the early stages after its return 
from the southern hemisphere at the winter-solstice, 
is the limpings powerless Harpocrates : the little sun. 
Isis, as the moon, is debilitated ; for she lacks the 
wonted profusion of the solar rays. But the dismal 
scene suddenly shifts to one which is all bright and 
joyous, and on the eleventh of the month Tybi — the 
sixth of January, is a jubilee-festival throughout 
Egypt. The lamps are lighted and suspended be- 
fore the houses of the inhabitants, and the whole 
country is illuminated with the fires of a new-born 
hope.* Osiris is found : the sun gains strength, or is 
ascending in its orbit ; and Sol- Osiris has once more 
passed triumphantly through the dark, depressing 
hours of trial. The nascent, cereal plants now also 
appear, — clothed in the green robe of promise, above 
the surface of the soil : it is their resurrection from a 



* " In Egypt," says M. Mallet, " there is no rejoicing, no festi- 
val of any consideration at all, unaccompanied -with illumination." 
— Herodotus states that at the festal sacrifice at Sais, celebrated 
during the night, in honor of Minerva, the oil of the lamps used on 
the occasion, was mixed with salt. Light was universally deemed 
sacred among the ancients, and in salt, it was generally believed, 
resided a peculiar sanctity. Arc not, therefore, the words of the 
Saviour, " Ye are the salt of the earth ; ye are the light of the 
world," a singular coincidence between revelation and reason ? 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 159 

slimy grave. Everywhere new life prevails : all na- 
ture is rejuvenated — born again* 



PARAGRAPH H. 
The Symbology of the Myth. 

Sculpture, metallurgy : for example, the golden 
calf of Aaron, painting, relievos, inscriptions, sacred 
history, architectural designs, religious observances, 
sacred games, sacred mysteries, etc., constitute the 
prolific source of hieroglyphical language, and sym- 
bolical significance. An elucidation of some of the 
symbols which relate to the details of the preceding 
disquisition on this subject, and which, according to 
the great work of the French savans, Description de 
V Eg-ypte, are found in the temple-sculpture of Phil a 
and Carnac, will here be attempted. 

Among the rich and varied drapery of symbolical 
devices, the following pictorial personages play an 
important part. The first is a small figure, dressed in 
the Egyptian habit, with the usual head gear, and up- 
raised hands, seemingly indicative of supplication. It 
is probably meant for a priest, in whose person the 
Egyptian people are represented : he petitions Heaven 
for the annual blessing; that is, for a high flood of the 

* After Christianity had been introduced into Egypt, the fa- 
thers of the church deemed it advisable, in order to wean the hea- 
thens from a superstitious observance, instead of the Egyptian fes- 
tival, celebrated on the sixth of January, in honor of the advent 
of the savior Osiris, to set apart that day in commemoration of 
the birth of Christ. Candlemas, in the Christian church, has its 
origin in the Egyptian feast of lamps, — the birth festival of Osiris. 



160 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Nile, on the inundations of which depend the fertility 
of Egypt, and the prosperity of its inhabitants. Be- 
fore him stands Hermes, whose form is human, ex- 
cepting the head, which is that of an ibis. In his 
hand is contained a long, serrated rod, which declines 
at the top, and shoots out into three connected lines. 
To one of the serratures of this rod, Hermes points 
significantly, while he intently eyes Osiris, who is 
seated in the centre of a symbolical group, and who, 
though represented in human form, is recognized as 
the god by the key of the Nile — the hilted-cross, 
and one of the distinctive badges of his divinity. 
The deity holds an obtuse cone under the rod, or 
Nilometer, evidently to balance it, and thus enable 
Hermes to determine the increment of the Nile. Be- 
hind Osiris, stands Isis, entreatingly raising her hands 
towards heaven, and seconding the intercession of 
the priest in behalf of Egypt. Herme*s, the ibis- 
headed god, is the sacred scribe of Osiris, and the 
celestial geometrician, who, pointing to the Nilom- 
eter, and eying the god of nature, inquires the de- 
termining point of the Nilic flood. A singular relief, 
probably denoting the subsiding of the Nile, and the 
happy consequences of its inundation, represents a 
male figure of large dimensions, reclining upon a 
bed. A lion skin covers his body, and his head is 
supported upon the right arm, while a fantastic bird, 
with the body of a vulture peculiar to Ethiopia, and 
the head of a youth, decorated with a symbolical cap, 
hovers over him. His membrum virile, indicative of 
a beneficent regeneration of nature, protrudes to a pro- 
digious size. At the head and foot of the bed, stand 
two females who are supposed to denote the celestial 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 1(51 

and the terrestrial Ms, the one bearing a globe in her 
hand, and ox-horns upon her head, and the other 
holding a greatly elongated rectangle, upon which is 
placed a vase. They evidently await the conclusion 
of the scene before them. Behind the goddess at the 
foot of the bed, appear two rows of personages, one 
above the other. The two first figures in the first 
row, have male-bodies and frog-heads ; those in the 
centre, also two in number, have the bodies of fe- 
males, decked with aquatic serpents : both pans have 
their sandals ornamented with jackal-heads. The 
two last personages in the row, seem to be the Egyp- 
tian god Thoth, with the head of an ibis, and Har- 
pocrates, readily known by his compressed legs.* 
This crippled divinity holds a wand in his hands, 
upon which a lotus leaf is represented. Behind the 
Isis last mentioned, stands a falcon-headed man, who, 
armed with a club, is in the act of slaying a fet- 
tered little fellow, having the head of a hare, and 
whose long ears he has firmly grasped with his left 
hand. To the rear of this hare-man killer, is still 
another personage, — a priest, who brings an offering 
of two vases, from the bases of wnich are suspended 
holy ribands, etc. 



* Thoth is only another name for Hermes. Anubis is also an 
appellation to which the same god responds. With the name of 
Thoth or Hermes especially, the Egyptians associated the ideas'of 
all that is profound and admirable in science or literature, and to 
this divinity, regarded and adored as the fountain-head of discour- 
sive knowledge, they therefore traced the origin of all the intel- 
lectual attainments and moral preminence of mankind. 

14* 



162 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

In the opinion of the French savans, this symboli- 
cal tableau relates to Egypt and the Nile. The reclin- 
ing figure is Osiris, symbolizing the Nile, which, 
metaphorically speaking, is on the point of awaken- 
ing from its lethargy ; and the lion-skin with which 
the god is covered, denotes the entrance of the sun 
into Leo, now Cancer ; the period of the year when 
the waters of that river attain their greatest height. 
The grotesque bird is emblematical of the fruitful- 
ness and plenty which the flood of the Nile, descend- 
ing from Ethiopia, pours into the lap of Egypt. Its 
juvenile head imports renovated nature. The little 
hare-man, about to be slain for a sacrifice, announces 
to us that the decisive time has arrived when the 
hare must forsake the flat, low country, and take 
refuge on the hills and in the deserts. This quadru- 
ped was also a symbol of fecundity among the an- 
cients, and therefore a fit emblem of the fertility of 
Egypt, consequent upon the, felicitous inundation of 
the Nile. - The serpent-decked and frog-headed per- 
sonages, with the jackal-headed sandals, are declara- 
tive of the fact that on the arrival of the Nilic flood, 
frogs and serpents are. swept away ; and that they 
can only find a secure asylum in the desert — the 
usual haunt of the jackal. As has already been 
stated, the country of Egypt, so vitally interested in 
the consequences of the inundation, is represented in 
the person of the entreating Isis. The presentation 
of the vases, it is supposed, signifies a drink-offering 
from the incipient flood; and according to Savigny's 
" Histoire Naturelle et Mythologue d' Ibis," the ibis- 
head of Hermes is characteristic of the overflowing 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 163 

of the Nile.* The same is true of the wreaths and 
leaves of the lotus which occur in this class of artis- 
tic symbols.f At last Osiris awakes : the Nile bursts 



* The Egyptian ibis, properly so called, and known in natural 
history as the Ardea ibis, belongs to the order of birds distin- 
guished in natural history as the grallce, or waders. Its color is 
entirely black ; its beak remarkably crooked ; its neck long and 
flexible ; while its legs are both long and sinewy : its -general ap- 
pearance is a good deal like that of the stork, and in size it is 
equal to the hen-raven. By destroying the serpents, frogs, toads, 
etc., which bred in the miry ground and slimy pools after the 
ebbing of the Nile, this bird deserved and received the esteem 
and veneration of the ancient Egyptians ; and so highly were its 
services valued, that to kill one was a capital crime. 

From this view of the subject, founded upon the authority of 
Herodotus, Hasselquist, etc., Savigny and others materially differ, 
and instead of recognizing the sacred ibis of Egypt in the preced- 
ing description, they define it to be the same as the Numenius albus 
of Cuvier — the more common species of the two; which they 
admit devoured the worms and insects which lay scattered over 
the muddy, nitrous precipitations of the overflowed fields of the 
Egyptians ; and affirm that it was held sacred, — not on account 
of its dietetic habits, but simply as a hieroglyphical symbol of the 
inundation of the Nile ; while they deny its generally conceded 
reputation as «, destroyer of ophidian and other reptiles. I will 
only add that in respect to the phagous habits and uses of the bird 
in question, my judgment prompts me to side with the former 
opinion. 

f The lotus is a water-lily, which grows upon the banks of 
streams, the edges of ponds, etc. The lotus of the Nile plays an 
important part in the hieroglyphical devices of the ancient Egyp- 
tians. Indeed, it was anciently everywhere deemed a sacred plant 
among the people of the East. According to Kreuzer, botany 
recognizes it under the name of nelurribium speciosum. It was a 
fundamental principle in the cosmogony of the heathens, that 
every thing originated from Rhea — llela, fluency, or the prime- 
val humidity, and the feminine principle of creation, in connec- 



164 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

its fetters, and foaming and surging, it wildly bounds 
from its rocky bed, watering and quickening expiring 



tion with Saturn, or time. Such, too, was the origin of Osiris and 
Isis. Hence, in the first place, the lotus is the symbol of water 
generally, as the genetic element of nature, and of the thrice holy 
Nile especially. Besides, as the deities just mentioned, were both 
brother and sister, and wife and husband, even prior to their birth, 
the lotus, in its organs of fructification, the stamens and pistil, 
symbolizes at once this twofold relation of the celestial pair. 1 
Therefore, in the second place, as the Nile, after a period of lan- 
guishment, revives again ; as the land of Egypt, after a protracted 
drought manifests new life and vigor ; and as the sun, or Osiris, 
dies towards the winter solstice, and subsequently arises again 
from death and the grave : Isis, as the moon and land of Egypt, 
also alternately suffering and rejoicing with her solar and Nilic 
spouse, so the lotus, which likewise has its reverses of fortune, or 
mutations of growth and decay, is again the expressive symbol of 
life succeeding death : a living historical evidence of the truth of 
the doctrine of a resurrection and of a life to come. 

The lotus has its diurnal sleep and vigil, as well as its annual 
death-sleep and revivification. In the night, deprived of the ge- 
nial solar stimulus, it folds up its leaves and petals : thus literally 
retiring to rest ; while during the day, these organs disclose them- 
selves-again, the flower-cup enlarging itself constantly as the orb 
of day rises towards its meridinal altitude. Behold, everywhere 
are suffering and death, yet everywhere suffering and death are 
followed by a new life and a glorious victory ! Of all these trans- 
mutations, or antagonistic elements of the powers and organic 
forms of nature, thus personified and allegorized, ever dying and 
yet living, the lotus is the pregnant symbol. Hence we find the 
stem, the leaves, and the blue flower of this hieroglyphical queen 
of plants, in a thousand combinations, decorating the works of 
sculpture and engraving of antiquity. 

1 The Egyptian lotus being described as monogynous, this fact evidently 
assigns it a place among the Ny7iij)hceacece, or water-lily family of plants, 
and not among the Nelumbiacece, or nelumbo-division of phytonic produc- 
tions. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 165 

nature.. In the month of May, the first symptoms 
of a swelling of the river may be observed, but 
before the lion makes his appearance, or, in other 
words, before the summer solstice, when the sun en- 
ters the zodiacal sign of Leo, the saving- flood does 
not delight the eye or greet the ear of the . anxiously 
expectant Egyptian. As soon, however, as this 
important astronomical event takes place, it has 
attained its maximum height, which, as it appears 
from Larcher on Herodotus, is variously estimated. 
" The majority of travellers inform us," writes this 
author, " that on an average the water usually rises 
every year to the height of twenty-two cubits. In 
1702 it rose to twenty-three cubits, four inches ; in 
the year preceding it rose to twenty-two cubits, 
eighteen inches ; according to these travellers, the 
favorable height is from twenty-two to twenty-three 
cubits ; according to Herodotus, from fifteen to six- 
teen. The difference is seven." 

This striking discrepancy of opinion on a subject 
so interesting, and for so many ages open to the in- 
vestigation of the historian and the philosopher, is 
remarkable, though still incomplete, as may be 
seen from the following statement in the Sacred 
Geography of Doctor Parish. " While the Nile 
overflows only to the perpendicular height of twelve 
cubits," says this writer, " a famine necessarily fol- 
lows in Egypt, nor is the famine less certain, should 
it exceed sixteen cubits, as Pliny says ; so that the 
just height of the inundation is between twelve and 
sixteen cubits." The Nile, now in the full tide of 
prosperity, may be said to be fairly in its element. 
It rushes with irresistible impetuosity over the cata- 



166 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

racts, and roaring and dashing, still augmenting its 
giant proportions ; and still accelerating its unbridled 
velocity, it arrives in Egypt, mocking all barriers and 
despising every restraint, the country of the Pha- 
raohs, from the environs of Syene to the Mediterra- 
nean, is, if history merits credit, a vast archipelago, 
and the inhabitants are suddenly converted from 
landmen into Argonauts; and boats are now their 
principal and often their only means of intercom- 
munication.* At last the twenty-fourth day of Sep- 
tember dawns upon a people buoyed on the pinions 
of ecstatic hope : it is a day of festivity and rejoicing 
throughout all Egypt. It is now that, under the 
shouts and paeans of the happy votaries of the Nile, 



* The inundations of the Nile have been more or less extensive 
in different ages of the world. A few facts may serve to illus- 
trate this proposition. " The country of Egypt," says the clerical 
geographer above quoted, " is not overflown, as some writers have 
asserted. In Upper Egypt the high banks always prevent the ex- 
pansion of the water. No part is overflown except the lower part 
of the Delta ; the lands near the river are watered by machines, 
and where the breadth of the country renders it necessary, canals 
are cut to lead the water from the river; while two hundred thou- 
sand oxen are employed in drawing water from the pits and 
canals to irrigate their fields and gardens." Memphis was south 
of the Delta, and yet there was a time when the country above it 
was subject to the inundations of the Nile, as it appears from the 
testimony of the Father of History. " In the reign of Moeris," 
writes he, " as soon as the river rose to eight cubits, all the lands 
above Memphis were overflowed ; since which a period of about 
nine hundred years has elapsed : but at present, unless the river 
rises to sixteen, or at least fifteen cubits, its waters do not reach 
those lands." This change in the immdati 
uted to an increased elevation of its banks. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 167 

the sluices of the beneficent stream are opened ; and 
that couriers are sent in every direction through the 
country to announce the propitious event: every- 
where the gay notes of gladness may be heard; 
pleasure beams from every eye, and every counte- 
nance is radiant with the realization of a better hope ; 
and thus one of the greatest and most interesting 
anniversary-jubilees of the nation, ushers in its inun- 
dation-celebration.* 

In the foregoing disquisition, the striking physical 
and agrarian elements peculiar to an Egyptian year, 
though wrought up into an allegorical myth, cannot 
have failed to arrest the attention of the reader, 
and to excite in him a wish to learn more of the* 
theological system of the people of the Nile : peo- 
ple early and justly renowned for their varied 
wisdom and superior civilization. According to 
Diodorus Siculus, it was the custom of the people 
of the Nile to present as an offering to the dead 
Osiris, their wasted and shrivelled river, tjiree hun- 
dred and sixty vessels filled with milk : a number 
corresponding to the days in the old Egyptian year. 



* In its more extensive inundations, Herodotus informs us, the 
Nile does not only overflow the Delta, but a part of the Lybian 
and Arabian frontiers, extending, on an average, two days' jour- 
ney on each side. I may add, that though the inundation of the 
Kile does not, as a general thing, wholly cover the more elevated 
situations of the Delta, or lower part of Egypt ; yet to provide 
against any sudden emergency, the houses of the inhabitants are 
usually built upon artificial mounds to secure them against an ex- 
traordinary rise of the water, either from natural' or accidental 
causes. 



168 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

A similar practice was observed at Acanthus, where 
the priests every day poured water taken from the 
Nile from three hundred and sixty urns into a barrel 
which was full of holes. This singular observance 
may have served the. double purpose of noting diur- 
nal time and of vividly representing its transient 
nature. Horus — the sun in the summer solstice, 
now begins to play an important part in this inter- 
esting and complex myth. From April till that 
period of the year when this solar lion appears, Ty- 
phon reigns, or, in other words, * scorching heat and 
fatal diseases prevail in Egypt. The earth but lately 
clothed in the verdant robe of life and beauty, is 
dried up : Isis has become a withered mummy, and 
the face of nature presents a desolate and mournful 
aspect. Horus, the intense heat of midsummer, 
assumes the reins in our planetary system, and the 
blessings of the Nile are revived ; the murdered 
Osiris is revenged, and he rises up from death, and 
lives agaiii in Horus, his mighty son: the sun in the 
vigor of its meridian altitude and glory, generating 
the greatest degree of light and heat ; bringing 
about the Nilic flood, and making Egypt fair and 
fruitful like a paradise planted and tilled by God; 
eradicating the seeds of pestilential miasmas ; ban- 
ishing want and sad forebodings from the land ; alid 
proving himself the physical savior of his devoted 
worshippers. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 169 



CHAPTER II. 

THE CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE PERSONIFICATION 
AND SYMBOL OGY OF THE EGYPTIAN YEAR, CONSID- 
ERED IN ITS SIDERAL AND AGRARIAN ATTRIBUTES. 

Preface. 

According to the elaborate metaphysical system 
of the Egyptian priests, Osiris is the Supreme Being. 
To form a true conception of this article of heathen 
faith, it will be necessary again briefly to advert to the 
doctrine of emanation, or evolution, common among 
the ancient oriental people. Agreeably to it, the God 
of gods is not merely contemplated as a unity, but also 
analyzed and personified according to his attributes ; 
and this species of analysis of the highest branch 
of metaphysics, is conducted in such a manner as 
to hypostatize or individualize every inherent qual- 
ity of the Supreme Being. And as each attribute 
of God is God, or identical with the entire Godhead, 
it follows that every adjective evolution of the Deity, 
as Osiris, considered in its highest potency, is itself 
the Supreme Being ; or, in other words, Osiris is one 
of the manifestations of the Eternal, hypostatized, 
first, as Amun, or Ammon- Jupiter, or as might, inas- 
much as he reveals or brings to light the hidden ideas 
or prototypes of the material world; secondly, as 
Phthas or wisdom, implying his demiurgic perfec- 
tion, inasmuch as he realizes the ideal world, and 
stamps upon it the completion which unerring truth 

15 



170 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

and the highest artistic skill alone can confer ; 
thirdly, as Osiris or goodness, inasmuch as he is 
beneficent and the author of all good gifts, the 
source of all life and every blessing. 

Osiris was the name which the Supreme Deity 
bore in the popular belief of the Egyptians ; but in 
the metaphysical or sacerdotal creed, Osiris was 
called Kneph, or Ammon, names which correspond 
to the Agathodaimon among the Greeks, and under 
which he held the same superior rank. In his vulgar 
acceptation, however, he is the sun, and as such the 
adoptive son of Amun or Ammon ; that is, Osiris 
the sun, or the fountain of material light and heat, is 
merely an emanation of Kneph, or Ammon, the 
source of metaphysical light and empyrean fire. 
Lastly, Osiris as the Nile, is nothing else, as Plu- 
tarch observes, but an emanation, a reflected ray, of 
the God of light, or Kneph, considered as the mate- 
rialized blessing of water. 



PARAGRAPH I. 

Osiris. 

As the son of Aurora, Osiris is identical with 
Memnon. Hence in his annual solar resurrection 
from death, he is Osiris Memnon : the young but 
growing sun. The hieroglyphical eye is Osiris, or 
the sun in its culmination, when it is in the sign of 
Leo* Osiris, or the sun in Taurus, is the second 



* In the age to which the text refers, the constellations of the 
zodiac and the signs of the ecliptic still corresponded, and the sum- 
mer solstice occurred in Leo and not in Cancer, as at present. 



EN' ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 171 

stage or mode of the vernal sun, whereas in Aries, the 
sun is not Osiris, but Amnion, or Amun — the first 
light or solar phasis of incipient spring. Amun and 
Ammon being synonymous terms, and expressive of 
the same god, Osiris, in view of the facts just stated, is 
said to be the adopted son of Amun, or according to 
the Greek version of the myth, of Jupiter- Ammon.* 
"When the sun is in Taurus, at the time of the new 
moon, and therefore in conjunction with the queen 
of night, our myth, according to the laws of allegor- 
ical interpretation, teaches us that Osiris, or the sun- 
taurus, impregnates the moon-vacca, or Isis, and that 
then vegetation begins to nourish upon the earth ; 
that is, the solar influence, considered as a masculine 
power, communicates the principles of vegetation 
when it overshadows the moon, and the comely and 
precious fruit of this sideral union, is vegetable life 
and beauty. Here Osiris and Isis are represented to 
us at once as the deities and as the powers of nature, 
and as being virtually the same as the Eswara and 
Isi of the ancient Hindoos. At last the son of Amun, 
Osiris, gets to be Amun himself: the son absorb- 
ing the father or resuming his primeval union with 
him, and being thus one with him, and he is now, 
metaphysically contemplated, the Supreme Being 
himself. During the period of the winter solstice, 
Osiris becomes Harpocrates : his rays shot forth ob- 
liquely from death and the grave, are pale and pow- 
erless, but no sooner has the sun begun to ascend 



* Jupiter Is derived from juvans pater, assisting the father. 
Osiris, or Jupiter, therefore, is the immediate emanation of Ammon, 
the first begotten son of the father ! 



172 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

from the southern to the northern tropic, or entered 
the sign of Capricorn, than Osiris manifests himself 
in the incipient stages of a new life and strength, or 
is the juvenile Hercules, who in the winter period of 
his existence and reign, is the analogue of the ado- 
lescent Harpocrates in spring. Horus, as has been 
already stated, is Osiris in the sign of Leo, and like 
his great sire, he often appears with the head of a 
hawk, which differs only from the same symbol of 
the father in the brighter hues of its plumage.* 

The Egyptians defined and adored three orders of 
gods, and in the vigor of his strength and the glory 
of his reign, Osiris claimed and received a place in 
the first, while in his passion and death he descended 
to the inferiority of the third. In this state of hu- 
mility and passive endurance, his supreme godhead 
was graciously associated with earth and humanity, 
and he was emphatically — god in the flesh ! It is 
entirely erroneous to suppose that any of the Egyp- 
tian deities have been mere mortals, deified on ac- 
count of heroic deeds, or eminent social virtues : 
these people, as is proved by the annals of their his- 
tory and the genius of their religion, never practised 
or sanctioned apotheosis. On the contrary, the germ 
and essence of the Egyptian religion, is the devout 
contemplation»of nature in its admirable laws and 

* The sacred hawk of the Egyptians, is of large size and brown 
color. Its eyes are exceedingly bright, and hence the eye of this 
bird was the honored symbol under which the ancient Egyptians 
worshipped Horus and Osiris, as the sun in its various phases of 
greatest power, and refulgent splendor. It deserves further to be 
remarked, that in his culminating might and dazzling majesty, 
Horus is emphatically known as Arueris. 



IX ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 173 

wonderful manifestations, and the recognition and 
worship of a superintending providence, under the 
diversified forms of personification. Among the hie- 
roglyphical symbols which illustrate and define the 
theological creed that forms the theme of our discus- 
sion, a scourge grasped by the hand of a god, was 
indicative of power and authority. Sitting upon the 
flower-cup of the lotus, imports that the regenera- 
tive waters of the Nile shall never fail, and that life 
shall never be annihilated. 

In the opinion of Jomard, based upon his re- 
searches among the antiquities of Egypt, the ac- 
couchement of Isis implies the winter solstice, and 
the incipient growth of vegetation at that season in 
Egypt — the period in the winter signs of the ecliptic 
when the North pole begins again to lean towards 
the sun. The infant god, nourished at the breast of 
Isis, signifies both the commencement of vegetable 
growth, and the increase of the days from the first 
of January when the earth is in perihelion. As a 
symbol of filial love, Osiris bears the head of the < 
hoopoo on his staff or sceptre ; becau.se, as it is as- 
serted, the bird responding to this name, supported 
and cherished its superannuated and helpless parents: 
a noble trait of disinterested affection and self-denial, 
which it must be honorable for a god to excite, or 
useful to imitate ! A sphinx presenting an image of 
Canobus, a god whose head is human, while the re- 
mainder of the body assumes a globular form, and 
is supposed to represent the spherical Nile-cup, is 
emblematical of the fact that this cup is the myste- 
rious mundane cup, containing the primordial ele- 
ments of fire and water ; and that being offered to 

15* 



174 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the great god of nature, he is to determine the just 
proportion of the mixture. 

Serapis also appears under the symbolical figure 
of Canobus. After the era of Alexander the Great, 
that god assumed the place of Osiris, and was at 
once a beneficent and a malignant deity, uniting 
Osiris and Typhon in one person ; yet in such pro- 
portions that the Osirian attributes in his character 
predominated over the Typhonian. According to 
Jablonski, Serapis is the sun in autumn, as Harpoc- 
rates is the feeble, obscured winter-sun ; while Am- 
nion, and to a certain extent Hercules, under the ap- 
pellation of Som, symbolize the god of day in the 
vernal equinox. 

PARAGRAPH II. 

Hercules. 

Hercules appears in the category ^ of those gods, 
who benignantly control the year, and who are at 
once the year and the gods of the year. As the in- 
fant sun, or the sun in the sign of Aries, he passed un- 
der the name of Som or Sem. This place in Egyp- 
tian theogony, is in the second order of the twelve 
great gods of the Nile. As such, he is the same as 
the Olympian Hercules of the Greeks, to whom those 
people offered divine honors ; while to the son of 
Amphitryon or Alcmena, the fictitious personifica- 
tion of the former, they simply paid the rites of a 
hero. As Som or Som-Hercules, in the more exten- 
sive import of the term, he is not only the personifi- 
cation of the struggling or wrestling year, but also 
of virtue, drete, as well as of the fiery energy of ethi- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 175 

cal enthusiasm. He is a beneficent divinity, and 
allied by the closest consanguinity to the good god 
Osiris. Like Osiris, he is an emanation of the su- 
preme and immortal divinity, and Amun, the prime- 
val source of light, is his illustrious sire.* To him 
his eyes are steadily directed from the zodiacal man- 
sion of Aries ; and, submissive to his parental behest, 
he diligently pursued the sideral path pointed out to 
him as the sphere of his actions, and the bright do- 
main of his power. Hercules is emphatically the 
propitious power, manifested in the blessings which 
the prolific waters of the Nile disseminate over 
Egypt. When it is asserted of him that he gagged 
or strangled Antaeus, the son of Posidon and the 
earth,f the meaning is that he overcame, or at least 
effectually resisted the destructive sand-showers of 
this ill-willed giant of the desert, by the opposing 
flood of the Nile, and the introduction of canals into 
the Delta, especially towards the Lybian desert, and 
making them of such a width that the stifling winds 
of that arid and arenaceous region, could no longer 



* The Greeks derive his origin from Zeus, their Pater-Deus, 
and Asteria — a derivation which is essentially the same as the 
Egyptian ; but in the language of their oracles, they called him 
simply Asteria's son, and understood Venus by the astral god- 
dess. According to both genealogical accounts, this god is there- 
fore an evolution or efflux of the immaterial fire ; the rudimentary 
germ of the creative principle — Pan-Mendes. 

f As Hercules, in the course of the annual cycle, succeeded 
Osiris, so Antaeus assumed the place of Typhon : each divinity 
had his distinct trials and enjoyments. Hercules, in particular, 
shared not only the prosperous, but also the adverse events, in the 
life of the kindred deity Osiris. 



176 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

drive the sands across the ample channels. Steadily- 
persevering in the execution of a laudable enterprise, 
he opposed an additional barrier to the devastating 
encroachments of the obnoxious and justly dreaded 
sands, by opening numerous ducts for the purpose of 
irrigation ; and by thus wisely intersecting Lower 
Egypt with a seasonable and healthful aqueous cir- 
culation, he happily succeeded in still more effectu- 
ally vanquishing Antaeus, the surly, mischievous mon- 
arch of sand-plains and sand-storms. 

Hercules alone, the puissant god, and invinci- 
ble wrestler, could accomplish labors at once so ex- 
tensive, so arduous, and so useful : no wonder that 
mythic fame accorded to him the honor of sustaining 
the weight of heaven upon his Atlas shoulders ! His 
name and daring still survive in the record of the 
Heraclecun canal. Numerous cities bore his name 
and commemorated his deeds ; and they were all 
situated at the mouth of the Nile, or on the banks of 
the canals : thus proclaiming to future ages that next 
to the Nile, Hercules was the most munificent dis- 
penser of water to the often thirsty, ay, parched land 
of Egypt; the most renowned hero -god ; and the 
illustrious prototype of the Jewish patriarch's vice- 
regal son, whose name and merits rank among those 
of the earliest and most successful patrons of internal 
improvement. In reference to Egypt, he is therefore 
properly surnamed Canobus, or the god of the waters ; 
and the Canobian and the Heraclean mouths of the 
Nile, are synonymous phrases. When Hercules is 
represented as being in a state of subjugation to 
superior powers ; as suffering or doomed to servitude ; 
as dying or being dead, etc., the meaning is, that, re- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 177 

garded as the sun, he suffered a periodical imbecility 
and partial obscuration in the winter season of his 
reign ; or, considered in his character of Canobus, 
that in the hot and arid division of the year, the 
waters in his canals and ditches were dried up by the 
burning breath of the Typhonian Antaeus, and the 
devastating sands of this restless and determined foe, 
encroached upon his patriotic works, and sadly mar- 
red the fair features of his domain. In the declining 
state of his solar life just referred to, Hercules, the 
sun- god, is Sandacus, the sun exhausted and dissolv- 
ed in his connubial devotion to Pharnace, or the 
moon, his celestial consort : * this interpretation of 



* The Egyptians, like other nations, divided time into cycles 
or periods of a greater or less extent. One of these cycles com- 
prised the solar year, or the space of three hundred and sixty-five 
days, and was personified under the name of Som-Hercules, the 
potent wrestler in the solar orbit. Hence it is that we find Her- 
cules, the valiant son of the resplendent Ammon, take his domi- 
nant station in Aries, and bravely, no less than wisely, control the 
varying year amid many and severe labors ; for the celebrated 
twelve labors of this martial god, are nothing else but the annual 
revolution of the sun in the path of the ecliptic, and the successive 
allegorical conflict in each zodiacal stage with the unpropitious 
cosmic powers, travestied by the licentious fancy of the Greek 
poets. The solar year was symbolized by the golden circle of king 
Osymandyas. It played a conspicuous part among the architectu- 
ral decorations of the Egyptians, and was divided into three hun- 
dred and sixty-five segments. The only other cycle of time 
I shall mention here, is the phoenix cycle. It derives its appella- 
tive distinction from the fabled but famous bird called phoenix. 
This hieroglyphical bird is represented as perched upon the hand 
of Hercules. A star, the emblem of Sirius, and a balance, signifi- 
cant of the summer solstice, defined and illustrated its symbolical 
importance. Its head is ornamented with a tuft of feathers ; its 



178 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the name Sandacus, contains a strong inkling of po- 
etic extravagance, and could hardly have been con- 
sidered orthodox among a people whose faith is 
generally defined with the earnestness of prosaic 
sobriety. 



PARAGRAPH HI. 

Typfiori. 

One of the symbols of Typhon is the ass, which, 
in an agrarian point of view, is the converse of the 
ox, so advantageously employed in the honorable 
pursuit of agriculture, and the venerated emblem of 
Osiris. Unable or unwilling to avail himself of an- 
other mode of progression, he sallies forth mounted 
upon an ass when he seeks to waylay Horus, the 

wings, according to Herodotus, are partly of a gold, and partly of 
a ruby color; and its form and size perfectly correspond to the con- 
tour and dimensions of the bird of heaven — the eagle : it is also 
recognized in the form of a winged genius in human shape. This 
emphatically astronomical bird, at the expiration of the great 
Sirius year, comprising a period of fourteen hundred and sixty- 
one years, used regularly to come from the East, we are told, bear- 
ing the ashes of its defunct sire, and depositing them in the tem- 
ple of the sun at Heliopolis ; that is, a new cycle of Sirial time 
commenced or succeeded the old ! It is further to be observed 
that at the termination of the fourteen hundred and sixty-one 
years, and at the time of the new moon during the summer sol- 
stice, the fixed agrarian and the vague ecclesiastical year of the 
Egyptians, exactly coincided. This event filled all Egypt with 
unbounded joy, and attested the perfection and triumph of the 
astronomical science of the priests, especially the most erudite 
among them — those of Heliopolis. Owing to the facts before 
us, the phoenix was a leading type of the resurrection among tho 
ancients, and regarded emphatically as the bird of time. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 179 

Egyptian Apollo, whom his mother Latona, or Isis, 
has taken the precaution to secrete in the isle of Buto. 
Owing to this circumstance, the ass is sacrificed 
to Horus, the inveterate enemy of darkness and mis- 
rule. According to Plutarch, the crocodile and the hip- 
popotamus are likewise symbols of the lurid and mis- 
chievous god. As to the signification of the term Ty- 
phon, it appears from Jablonski's " Pantheon of Egypt," 
that it is ventus malignus ac nocivus y noxious or de- 
structive wind.* Typhon figures also under the ap- 
pellation of Bebony Babys, or Baby, which, says the 
same author, imports the latent wind in subterranean 
caverns. Smy, too, is a title to which he does not 
hesitate to respond : it denotes tabid, or consumed. 
Besides, his Typhonian majesty is distinguished by 
the cognomen Seth, which is synonymous with ass- 
colt. Typhon appears armed with a heavy club and 
a long knife, and thus equipped he has the temerity 



* One genealogy traces the descent of Typhon to Tartarus and 
Terra ; decorates the upper part of his person with a hundred 
leads like those of a serpent or dragon ; and furnishes him with 
a mouth and eyes, from which dart flames of devouring fire. Hav- 
ing stated that the lurid god was the most eminent of those giants 
that presumed to wage war against heaven, Tooke thus proceeds : 
" Typhoeus, or Typhon, the son of Juno, had no father. So vast 
was his magnitude, that he touched the east with one hand and 
the west with the other, and the heavens with the crown of his 
head. A hundred dragon's heads grew from his shoulders ; his 
body was covered with feathers, scales, rugged hair," and adders ; 
from the ends of his fingers snakes issued, and his two feet had 
the shape and fold of a serpent's body ; his eyes sparkled with fire, 
and his mouth belched out flames. He was at last overcome, and 
thrown down — from heaven ; and lest he should rise again, the 
whole island of Sicily was laid upon him." 



180 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

to attempt even the life of the good mother Isis. 
Notwithstanding the great and manifold evils with 
which this ill-natured and mischief-plotting deity 
visited mankind, he could boast of his Typhonias or 
temples, his sacrifices, and his worshippers. In a 
small temple at Carnac, he condescends to appear 
under a variety of symbolical attributes ; and once in 
the grotesque form of a swine, with the breasts of a 
woman, while the inferior parts of his body are com- 
posed of the heterogeneous elements of a man, a dog, 
and a lion. 

In the hypogeums of Thebes^ Nephthys, the 
charming spouse of his satanic excellency, is repre- 
sented with prolonged mammae, and both she and 
her respectable consort, are seen embodied in the 
beautiful artistic idea, compounded of the figure of 
a swine, the paws of a lion, the head of a hippopota- 
mus, and the arms of a man ! Typhon, as well as 
Osiris, must die, and Horus proves himself his will- 
ing executioner. Blood cries for blood : the aveng- 
ing hand is raised ; and, armed with a spear, the son 
of Osiris plunges the dea'dry weapon into the hippo- 
potamus-body of the malignant god : he dies. Alas ! 
that he should again revive ! Thus did Horus rec- 
ompense the perfidious author of so many insults 
and wrongs, as basely as undeservedly inflicted upon 
himself, his family, and his people. Hercules now 
appears upon the stage, and the interminable war 
against the Proteus-like Typhon is renewed. The 
recent victim of a deeply outraged divinity, fear- 
lessly arrays himself against his stalwart opponent*, 
under the name and in the character of his old foe 
Antaeus. It was Satan thus metamorphosed, whom 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 181 

Hercules, in defence of justice and the common 
good, was obliged to gag with a thong. Antseus, or 
Antaus, like his worthy prototypes, reigns east and 
west of the banks of the Nile, in the deserts of Ara- 
bia and Lybia, and indeed, wherever scorching heat, 
simoon-winds, and sand-showers exert their baleful 
sway. This name is etymologically deduced from 
the extensive sand-plains and sand-dunes which con- 
stitute his dismal empire : the debris-production of 
the sea and the desert. One of his strong-holds, 
the principal seat of his pernicious power, and the 
flagitious work of his own hands, was situated in 
the Arabian division of his arid and arenose domin- 
ions. It bore his name, and the recollection of it 
still lives in the records of archaeology. A memorial 
of the name and exploits of this formidable sand- 
god, was also transmitted to posterity in the foun- 
dation of the ancient city of Antaeopolis, the locality 
of which was defined by a long and profound 
chasm in the vicinity of the Arabian mountains. 

In the person of Busiris, we are likewise required 
to acknowledge a Typhonian evolution or transfor- 
mation ; but as his functions and qualities are sim- 
ilar to the life and attributes of the rest of his 
inimical race, I deem it unnecessary to pursue a 
subject, which has already been sufficiently elu- 
cidated to enable the reader to form an accurate 
idea of its metaphorical character and signification. 

16 



182 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EGYPTIAN THEORY OF THE WORLD, AND THE WOR- 
SHIP OP SACRED ANIMALS OR HIERO-ZOOLATRY. 



PARAGRAPH I. 
Their Theory of the World. 

According to Proclus, the Egyptians postulated 
three orders or emanations of gods i a fact which 
the beginning of the present century still attested in 
the extant zodiacs in the small town of Tentyra on 
the Nile. Directing our vision towards the upper 
part of the cupnlo, in which this ancient specimen 
of the astronomical theology of the Egyptians is 
perpetuated, we discover quite at the top the twelve 
great or calendarian gods, symbolized in the twelve 
signs of the zodiac. Each of these twelve gods has 
his three satellites called Decani, and also known as 
the demons or ethereal gods of Hermes, the personifi- 
cation of the soul or intelligent principle of the uni- 
verse. Each of the Decani, likewise has two adjuncts, 
and thus divinity is divided and subdivided until the 
circumference of the pneumatological zodiac, com- 
prising three hundred and sixty degrees, extends in 
twelve homo-centric pyramids to the centre of the 
earth. Every one of these zodiacal pyramids has 
its presiding demon, just as the twelve great mun- 
dane gods are governed by the supreme divinity, 
recognized as Ammon or Kncph. These deities reg- 
ulate the seasons and the cycles of time of our 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 183 

planetary system ; and hence the ancient division of 
annual time into hebdomads, or weeks of seven days, 
and years of twelve months. We here perceive a 
vast, theocosmic system, whose apex terminates in 
unity, and which proclaims the interesting and im- 
portant truth, that all the gods are essentially but 
one god, as all the suns and planets are but one 
world. 

The entire heaven, or the world considered as su- 
pernal, is marked out into numerous compartments 
and distributed among the celestial rulers, while the 
uppermost regions, extending downwards from the 
pyramidal zenith of the universe to the moon, apper- 
tain preeminently to the gods, according to then sev- 
eral ranks and orders. The first and highest among 
them are the twelve uper-auranioi, or supercelestial 
gods, with their subordinate demons. After these 
follow the egkosmioi, or intercosmic gods, of whom 
each also presides over a number of demons, to 
whom he imparts his power, and who rejoice to bear 
his name. Within the ample limits of these demons, 
gravitates the centre of all things. The demons, 
receiving their power and influence from the gods, 
whose subalterns they are, produce the plants and 
animals, infusing into them their own energies, thus 
replenishing the world, and uniting into one stupen- 
dous whole the four spheres of the universe: the 
supercelestial, the celestial, and the super and sub- 
lunar spheres. 

There are six orders of demons. The first is sui 
generis, and has a truly divine nature. These high- 
est demons link the souls in the bodies : the effluxes 
of the Father, to the gods. The second order, still 



184 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

remarkable for high intellectual attributes, has the 
supervision of the souls as they enter or leave the 
bodies : they make creation manifest. The third 
imparts to the divine souls who enter into bodies for 
the benefit of common souls, the second degree of 
creative power, while it sheds upon them the higher 
influences. The fourth bestows upon the individual- 
ized natures, or distinct forms of being, the active 
powers, or principles of synthetic or concrete exist- 
ence ; as, life, order, ideas, and the means of perfec- 
tibility which are at the disposal of the gods. The 
fifth order of demons, possessing bodily similitude — 
somatceides, hold together, sustain, and preserve all 
the elements of the terrestrial body, after the sample 
of the eternal body : the ideal body and type and 
source of all bodies. As to the demons of the sixth 
and last order, they are charged with the care of 
ule, or matter, and it is their business to superintend 
the powers which descend from the heavenly ule 
into the terrestial ule, and to preserve the outlines — 
skiagraphiai) of the ideas in matter. 

As the upper celestial sphere has its subdivisions 
of beings, so has the lower ; and according to a fixed 
law of pneumatology, the inferior beings always act 
in subserviency to the superior. The sphere of the 
moon, the air, the fire, and the water, etc., are all 
filled with demons, who are of an elastic, ethereal 
nature, and who officiate as intermediate agents be- 
tween the gods and mankind. They preside over the 
elements and organic life. Upon them depend the 
growth, the inflorescence, the virtue, and the perfec- 
tion of plants ; and hence all plants which bloom in 
any given month or under a particular zodiacal sign, 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL' DEVELOPMENT. 185 

are decidedly influenced by the god to whom such 
sign or month is sacred ! Behold the origin of sa- 
cred plants, and the foundation of pharmacy ! 



PARAGRAPH II. 
The worship of Sacred Animals, or Hiero-zoolatry. 

Ancient Egypt was a vast menagerie of sacred 
animals, whose ample roof was the vault of heaven ; 
and from the confines of Thebes or Disopolis to the 
mouth of the Nile at Canobus, the whole country 
teemed with hiero-animal life. As every depart- 
ment of heaven had its zodiacal animal and its zodi- 
acal habitation adapted to it, so every canton had 
its sacred animal and its temple, in which it received 
the most scrupulous attention of its votaries. To 
some extent, at least, these animals symbolized in 
their instincts and habits, the phenomena and 
changes incident to the solar year, and they might, 
therefore, with some propriety be regarded as the 
natural chronometers of the different periods of time. 
Thus the vernal season and the rutting period of the 
ram are coincident; the increased frequency and 
loudness of the sonorous cries of the lion, mark 
the hot part of the year ; a roving, restless manner 
distinguishes the conduct of the goat after the rainy 
season has set in ; and the vigilant, spying nature 
of the dog, announcing the approach of man or 
beast, makes him a fit emblem of Sirius, or the dog- 
star, which, as soon as it has ascended above the 
horizon, proclaims the approaching flood of the Nile. 
The sacred animals were not always the same in the 
16* 



186 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

different cantons or cities of Egypt ;* and if we re- 
flect that that country had upwards of thirty cantons, 
or nomes, beside a great many cities, it must have 



* In his Dictionary of the Bible, the late Professor Alexander 
informs us that Egypt was divided into about thirty -six nomes or 
counties ; that it was once very populous, and contained about 
twenty thousand cities ; and that its greatest length, from north to 
south, was six hundred, and its greatest breadth, from east to west, 
three hundred miles. According to this statement, founded 
upon the authority of Herodotus, a city is allowed for every nine 
square miles, a phenomenon which, with all proper deference for 
the high worth and honored memory of the Professor, is posi- 
tively incredible, unless we ignore" all ideas by which the term city 
is usually defined. Speaking of the populousness of ancient 
Egypt, Diodorus Siculus says, " In a general account once taken 
of the inhabitants, they amounted to seven millions, and there are 
no less than three millions at present. Assuming, however, with 
Doctor Parish that Egypt at one period contained eight millions 
of inhabitants, a city on an average could have numbered no more 
than four hundred persons ! In what light Savary viewed this 
subject, may be seen from the following observations : " Ancient 
Egypt supplied food to eight millions of inhabitants, and to Italy 
and the neighboring provinces likewise. At present the estimate 
is not one half. I do not think, with Herodotus and Pliny, that 
this kingdom contained twenty thousand cities in the time of Am- 
asis : but the astonishing ruins everywhere to be found, and in 
uninhabited places, prove they must have been thrice as numer- 
ous as they are." A brief notice of the population of modern 
Egypt, as it has been defined and illustrated by Volney, will con- 
clude this disquisition. "It is impracticable," says the French 
traveller, " to form a just estimate of the population of Egypt. 
Nevertheless, as it is known that the number of towns and villages 
does not exceed two thousand three hundred, and the number of 
inhabitants in each of them, one with another, including Cairo it- 
self, is not more than a thousand, the total cannot be more than 
two millions three hundred thousand." 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 187 

made a material difference in the expense incident 
upon the support of the symbolical animals, — and 
these alone strictly deserve to be regarded as the 
sacred animals of the Egyptians, whether the whole 
number of them was distributed in groups over the 
country, each part providing for a certain portion of 
them, or whether all of them had to be supported in 
every place in which such animals were kept, thus 
multiplying the cost of their maintenance to an 
enormous extent, without deriving any additional 
advantage in support of science or religion. 

At Thebes, the sun-city of Ammon, the ram was 
worshipped; at Chemmis, or Achmin, Hermopolis, 
and Mendes, located at the Mendesian mouth of the 
Nile, goats, especially males, were esteemed sacred, 
and dedicated to Pan or Jupiter. The city Mendes 
derived its appellation from the sacred goat which it 
cherished in its midst as the repository or the sym- 
bol of divinity ; an appellation which, according to 
Jablonski, denotes the generative power of nature, 
especially of the sun, while in the opinion of Cham- 
pollion, it implies an island. Mythology, however, 
leaves no room to doubt that the hieroglyphical goat 
and the holy city of Pan, were both theocosmically 
distinguished by the term Mendes. Again, at Cy- 
nopolis the dogs, at Lycopolis the wolves, at Bu- 
bastis the cats, and at Tachompso the crocodiles, in 
the Coptic called Champsae, were served with relig- 
ious zeal and solemn rites. There were, however, 
sacred animals which were common to the whole 
country ; as the bull, the cow, the dog, the cat, the 
ibis, the hawk, and the scarabaeus — the symbol of 
the masculine principle of fecundity, and noticed on 



188 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

a former occasion* A few of the sacred animals 
towered far above the rest in sanctity and hiero- 
glyphical importance, and these were the three holy 
bulls known as Mnevis, Onuphis, and Apis. The 
first was symbolically adored at Heliopolis ; was of 
a black color ; had bristly hair ; and symbolized the 
sun — probably in its inferior orbit. Onuphis was 
likewise black ; had shaggy, recurved hair ; and is 
supposed to have been the emblem of the retroced- 
ing sun. As the representative or image of divinity, 
he was distinguished by the appellations of good 
god, good spirit, etc. Apis was the offspring of a 
cow, asserted and believed to have been impregnated 
by a ray of light from heaven. It was necessary 
that he should be of a black color, with the exception 
of two white spots, one of a triangular shape upon 
the forehead, and another in the form of a half-moon, 
upon the right side, etc. As soon as this living sym- 
bol of Osiris was found, he was conveyed in trium- 
phal procession to a temporary abode, where, during 
the space of four months, he was attended and fed 
with the greatest care, in a building the east side of 
which was uninclosed. At the expiration of this 
period, a festival of rejoicing was proclaimed, which 
began at the new moon. As soon as the solemni- 
ties were concluded, Apis was conducted to Heliop- 



* Kreuzer, on the authority of Porphyry and others, says of 
this insect that its impellctted eggs are hatched in the ground after 
a period of twenty-eight days; adding that it was therefore an 
emblem of the revolution of the moon round its axis ; ' and that its 
alternate semi-annual existence above and beneath the earth, makes 
it the symbol of the sun in the northern and southern tropic. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 189 

olis, where he had the honor to have every attention 
shown to him by the priests, during an interval of 
forty days. This time having elapsed, he was finally 
brought to Memphis, and duly installed in the tem- 
ple of Phthah, where his presence was recognized in 
clouds of precious incense and splendid offerings. 
If he died, or the time arrived when he had to make 
room for a successor — which happened at the ter- 
mination of the Apis-period, or the lunar cycle of 
twenty-five civil years,* there was universal mourning 
throughout Egypt until another Apis was found: 
the dead one was either publicly entombed in the 
temple of Serapis, or elsewhere privately interred. 
Apis was the symbol of Osiris, considered as the 
sun, as the Nile, and as the principle of fructifica- 
tion ; and in consequence of the connection of Osiris 
thus defined with Isis, Apis also symbolized this god- 
dess, regarded as the moon, the fertile earth, and mate- 
rial nature. 

Some light is shed upon the origin and nature of 
sacred animals, by Eberhard in his Geist des Urchris- 
tenthums. " According to Mosheim, on the intellec- 
tual system of Cudworth," says he, " the sacred ani- 
mals of the Egyptians were originally Fetissos. This 
phrase, which the French language has converted 
into Fetiches, is Portuguese, and signifies chosefee, 
a divine agent that communicates oracles. Upon 
their arrival on the western coast of Africa, the 



* According to the Egyptian creed, Osiris appeared in the flesh 
at the expiration of every twenty -five years : a ray of heaven or 
the sun impregnated a cow, and the fruit of this solar-overshadow- 
ing was Apis. 



190 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Portuguese found that some of the natives worship- 
ped trees, stones, animals, etc., which they believ- 
ed animated by a Maribou, or divinity. A fetich is 
therefore matter, in some form or another, in which a 
god resides. There is no doubt that while the 
Egyptians still continued to be in a state of barbar- 
ism, they worshipped their sacred animals as fetiches. 
Even after they had assumed an agrarian life, the 
sun, the moon, the Nile, etc., were included among 
their national fetiches which, under the similitude of 
man or beast, were represented as Osiris, Isis, Horus, 
etc. However, all these images ivere hieroglyphics, 
by which they expressed their complex astronomical 
and agrarian calendar, and which, being displayed 
in their temples, a knowledge of it was readily and 
universally communicated." 

The following, taken from Doctor Priestley's Re- 
marks on the " Origin of all Religion," by Dupis, and 
Walz's Erklarung des Kalenders, etc., is calculated to 
throw additional light upon this subject. " Since 
Capricorn, or the wild goat" says the former, " natu- 
rally gets into the most elevated situations, browsing 
on what he can find on the highest mountains, it was 
thought to suit the place in the heavens from which 
the sun begins to ascend from the southern to the 
northern tropic. And the crab being an animal that 
goes backwards, it was thought to suit that tropic 
from which the sun begins to descend, and return to 
his former place," In the opinion of the latter, the 
zodiacal signs were originated when the Egyptians 
were chiefly devoted to a nomadic life, and he thinks 
that they named the constellation in the east, which 
was visible above the horizon just before the sun 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 191 

arose in the first month of spring, the ram or lamb, 
because at that season the most lambs were yeaned, 
and because a principal source of their wealth con- 
sisted in their flocks. For similar reasons, he thinks, 
they conferred the appellation of taurus, or bull, upon 
the second month. Conceiving the lion to be of a 
hot nature, they denominated the constellation which 
seemed to be the harbinger of the morning sun, dur- 
ing the hottest part of the year, the lion. The scor- 
pion being a poisonous insect, its name was given to 
the orient constellation which marked the daily re- 
appearance of the sun during the period of the year 
when dangerous diseases prevailed.* The only con- 
stellation which remains for me to notice, in this 
place, is that of Pisces, thus distinguished, according 
to our author, because during the month in which it 
might be seen in the eastern horizon before sunrise, 
it was the season for fishing. 

Though the Egyptians entertained a peculiar ven- 
eration for the animals of their country, and were 
obliged by law to cherish them, yet the intelligent 
members of the community did never consider any 
of them to be gods in an absolute sense, nor worship 
them as such ; but, on the contrary, they simply re- 
garded and treated them as sacred, in respect to their 
hieroglyphical character and uses, or if in the opinion 
of strangers and the vulgar, they paid divine honors 
to any of them, that opinion is to be discarded as 
erroneous and absurd, as the worship was not in- 



* The sickly season in Egypt begins muck earlier than the 
period of Scorpio, yet it may extend its ravages into autumn. 
— G. 



192 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

tended for the sacred beasts, but for the divinity which 
animated them, or of whom they were the signifi- 
cant symbols. " In the presence of these animals," 
says Herodotus, " the inhabitants of the cities perform 
their vows. They address themselves as supplicants 
to the divinity^ who is supposed to be represented by 
the animal in whose presence they are."* The 
Egyptians sacrificed many of their sacred animals 
and feasted upon their flesh ; would they have done 
this if they had thought them to be gods ? The idea 
is monstrous! That the common people — ignorant 
as they undoubtedly were in that age of the world — 
may have been bond fide believers in the absolute 
divinity of cats and dogs, and worshipped them as 
such, I feel no hesitation to admit ; but that such 
was the creed and the practice of the elite of the na- 
tion, I boldly deny. 

* Beloe. 



SECTION II. 

THE COSMOGONY AND THEOLOGY OF THE HINDOOS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE COSMOGONY OF THE HINDOOS. 

According to M. Poller's Mythologie des Indous, 
the following account, interspersed with comments 
and quotations by Creuzer, comprises the Hindoo 
history of the creation of the world : " In the pri- 
mordiate state of the creation, the rudimental universe, 
submerged in water, reposed in the bosom of the 
Eternal. Brahma, the architect of the world, poised 
on a lotus leaf, floated upon the waters, and all that 
he was able to discern with his eight eyes (Brahma 
has four heads) was water and darkness.* Amid 



* According to the cosmogonic theory of the Egyptians, an illim- 
itable darkness, called Athor, or mother-night, and regarded as the 
primeval element of mundane existence, covered the abyss ; while 
water and a subtile spirit pneuma, resided through divine power, 
in chaos. A holy light now shone, the elements condensed or 
were precipitated beneath the sand from the humid parts of rudi- 
17 (193) 



194 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

scenes so ungenial and dismal, the god sank into a 
profound revery, when he thus soliloquized : ' Who 
am I ? Whence am I ? ' In this state of abstraction, 
Brahma continued during the period of a century 
of years of the gods, without apparent benefit or 
a solution of his inquiries, a circumstance which 
caused him great uneasiness of mind.* Suddenly 
he heard the voice, " Direct your prayer to Bhaga- 
vant — the Eternal, known, also, as Parabrahma. 
Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats him- 
self upon the lotus in an attitude of contemplation, 
and reflects upon the Eternal, who now appears in 
the form of a man with a thousand heads : Brahma 
still prays. This evidence of his piety is pleasing to 
the Eternal, and therefore he dispersed the primeval 
darkness, and opened his understanding." In his 
capacity of mover of the ivaters, Brahma is recognized 
under the name of Narajan, and as such he is still 
represented in an image of blue marble in the great 
cistern at Catmandu. 

As a symbol of this god, the water-lily — the lotus 
of the Egyptians — continues to this day to be revered 



mcntary creation, and nature, thus fecundated, the gods dissemi- 
nated through space, etc. 

* In the Institutes of Menu, the following comparative estimate 
is given of the years of the gods : " A month of mortals is a day 
and a night of the Pitri's, or patriarchs inhabiting the moon. A 
year of mortals is a day and night of the gods, or regents of the 
universe round the north pole. Twelve thousand divine years is 
called the ago of the gods, and a thousand such years is a day of 
Brahma. His night has equal duration." — Doctor Priestley's 
" Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with those of the Hin- 
doos and other ancient nations, etc." 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 195 

in the temples of the Hindoos, in Thibet and Nepaul; 
and a Nepaulese bowed reverently before this sacred 
plant as he noticed it in entering the study of Sir 
William Jones. It appears from this author's work, 
Dissertations Relating to Asia, that even before they 
germinate, the seeds of the lotus contain perfectly 
formed leaves, nature thus giving us a specimen of 
the preformation of its productions. It deserves fur- 
ther to be remarked, that the lotus is the emblem of 
the generative power of nature through the media of 
fire and water ; and that it accompanies the images 
of all the Hindoo gods, who personify the idea of 
creation or generation. Hence it is said in the Bha- 
gavat Geeta, according to Herder's Vbrwelt, " Eter- 
nal ! I see Brahma the creator enthroned in thee 
above the lotus." * 

The darkness being dispersed and Brahma's un- 
derstanding opened, the first act of the creation of the 
ideal world unrolled itself, and the future creator of the 
visible universe beheld in the archetypical exhibitions 
of the Eternal, buried as it were in a profound sleep, 
all the infinite forms of the terrestrial world, f At 
this crisis, the Eternal uttered the behest, " Brahma, 
resume your contemplation, and as soon as you have 
attained the knowledge of my omnipotence, by 



* This was, therefore, a poteniia, non actu, existence of the world, 
an ideal creation, and the sum of preformations, from which future 
being was to be produced ; an idea which bears a strong analogy 
to that which Plato has advanced in his Timaus. 

f It deserves to be remarked in reference to the lotus, that the 
seed of all phcenogamous plants or plants of a higher grade bear- 
ing proper flowers, contain an embryo plantlet ready formed. — G. 



196 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

means of mortification and abstraction, I will endow 
you with creative power, and enable you to develop 
the world from the life which is hidden in my 
bosom." Obedient to the monition of Bhagavat, 
Brahma again becomes absorbed in contemplation, 
and resigns himself to prayer and mortification dur 
ing the period of a century of years of the gods- 
At the expiration of this probationary term, Brahma 
received the promised creative power, and now the 
second act of the creation began. Brahma first cre- 
ated infinite space ; in the next place, he exercised 
himself upon the principles of things ; after that he 
produced the seven Surges or stellar spheres, illumi- 
nated by the resplendent bodies of the Dejotas ; and 
lastly, he ushered the earth Mirtlok, with its sun 
and moon, and the seven Patals, or lower regions, 
into existence : the Surges and the Patals constitute 
the fourteen worlds of the Hindoo cosmogony. 

At this stage of the world, animated beings were 
formed, and among them spirits enjoyed a priority 
of existence. The first in the order of time, was 
Lomus — the great Muni, who, entirely absorbed in 
reflection and contemplation, secluded himself in the 
vicinity of Ajhudja or Audhde, where he tarries till 
the end of days.* When the creator Brahma per- 
ceived that Lomus was of no use to the world, he 
made the nine Rischis — inspired beings, among 



* Audhde is one of the most ancient cities of East Hindostan, 
and celebrated for its Ssorgadoari, or temple of heaven. Accord- 
ing to mythic fame, it happened on one occasion that the re- 
nowned saint, Shri llama, bore all the inhabitants of Audhee, to- 
gether with himself, into heaven ! 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 197 

whom was included Nardman, and illustrious intel- 
ligence connected with the three persons of the god- 
head; but who, notwithstanding this exalted rela- 
tion, was the author of discord and rebellion, — a 
Titan, similar in character to the Ahriman of the 
Persians or the Prometheus of the Greeks. Like Lo- 
mus,the Bischis resigned themselves to an impassive, 
all absorbing contemplation. 

The world having been thus far completed, in or- 
der to populate it, Brahma, in conjunction with his 
wife Sarbutti, brought forth a hundred sons, of whom 
the oldest — Datch, also begat an equal number; but 
these generations consisted only either of Dejotas — 
inhabitants of the Surg's, or celestial space, or of 
Daints — giants : the denizens of the Patals — the 
lower spheres or regions, and who could therefore not 
be employed to people Mirtlok, or the earth. Hence 
Brahma put forth his creative energy in the produc- 
tion of mankind, and from his mouth, he engendered 
Brahman, a name which is synonymous with the 
term priest, to whom he gave the four Vedas : the 
four words or books of his four mouths. Brahman 
felt very lonely, and besides, he was exceedingly 
afraid of the wild beasts of the forests; wherefore 
the creator made from his right arm Kaettris the 
warrior, and from his left arm his wife Shaterany. 
Unfortunately, Raettris, engaged day and night in 
the production of his brother Brahman, could not 
find time to provide for his own wants. From his 
right thigh Brahma therefore begat the third son Bais, 
destined to cultivate the soil, and to prosecute com- 
merce and the mechanic arts, while from his left 
thigh he formed his wife Basany. The labors and 
17* 



198 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

cares of the earth being still too multifarious and 
severe for the existing progenitors of the race, Brah- 
ma proceeded, in the last place, to create from his 
right foot the fourth son Suder, intended to perform 
all kinds of servile labor, and from his left foot his 
wife Suderany : these first begotten human beings 
were the patriarchs or founders of the four Hindoo 
castes, by whom the earth was peopled, and who re- 
ceived the four Vedas as the law of human life. 

Brahman complaining that he alone, of all his 
brethren, had no companion, the Eternal bade him 
not to divert his attention with such thoughts, but 
to devote himself solely to the study of the Vedas, 
to prayer, and the observance of divine worship. 
Nevertheless, the first-born of mankind insisted upon 
a compliance with his request to have a consort, and 
therefore, in his wrath, the Eternal gave Brahman a 
Daintany, a daughter of the race of the Daints, or 
giants, of whom all the Bramins are maternally de- 
rived ; and thus the entire Hindoo priesthood is de- 
scended, on the one hand, from a superior spirit, and 
on the other, from a demonian woman. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE THEOLOGY OF THE HINDOOS. 

Notwithstanding the Hindoo system of theology 
has assumed a diversity of forms, according to the 
degree of information or the plastic skill of authors, a 
careful investigation of the subject, and a proper at- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 199 

tention to the difference between its essential import 
and its adventitious coloring, has enabled us to ar- 
rive at the following facts, which it is presumed may 
be regarded as a fair specimen of the prominent and 
peculiar features by which it is ethnologically dis- 
tinguished : There is one only Supreme Being who, 
being considered as unrevealed, is denominated Para- 
brahma, Brehm, Paratma, Ram, or Bhagavat. Reveal- 
ing himself as Brahma, Birma, or Brahma, the creator, 
he produces the world through self-contemplation; 
manifesting himself as Siva, Mahadeva, or Madajo, 
he destroys it ; and appearing under the name and in 
the character of Vichnu, he reproduces or preserves 
it. The symbol of Brahma is the earth ; of Siva, the 
fire ; and of Vichnu, the water : these principal per- 
sonifications *)f Parabrahma, are the three great De- 
mote, whose mother is said to be Bhavani, and of 
whose origin mythic fame gives a triple account. 
" Bhavani," thus proceeds the most commonly re- 
ceived version of the sacred legend, " transported with 
joy at the thought of having obtained existence, ex- 
pressed her delight in skips and leaps, and while thus 
blithely engaged, three eggs fell from her bosom, from 
which issued the three Dejotas : the Trimurti, or Hin- 
doo trinity." The most holy term in the Hindoo 
liturgy, denoting the divine trinity in unity, and 
which no pious Hindoo dares to pronounce, both on 
account of its inherent sanctity and the profound 
reverence which he entertains for it, is O'M; which is 
at once a contraction and a phonetic representation 
of the letters A, U, M. 

It is by this thrice sacred monograph that the three 
supreme mundane divinities, or highest emanations 



200 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

of Parabrahma, are designated. The trinity in unity- 
being Parabrahma, the self-existent, and the undis- 
closed and absolutely Supreme Divinity, he is regard- 
ed as too exalted for the intercourse of mortals, and 
accordingly he has neither temples nor worshippers* 
Hence representations like those of the lingam, the 
yoni, f etc., can only have been intended to symbol- 
ize his distinct energies or manifestations. Para- 
brahma is, therefore, to be regarded as the One Eter- 
nal, who is unity in plurality, or one in all, and who, 
absolutely considered, has neither parts nor form, 
being simply an intelligence as well as the organ and 
object of intelligence ; but when contemplated in his 
cosmical displays or in his relations to the actual 
world, it is natural to recognize him according to his 
different attributes or divine acts, and equally natural, 
as it is evident from the whole ethnic history of man- 
kind, to represent him under a variety of expressive 
symbolical devices. He is emphatically the Eternal ; 
the only absolute reality, revealing himself in joy and 
bliss. As a being he is less than an atom, yet more 
vast than the universe. In his essence, he is incom- 
prehensible, ineffable, and unrepresentable. The 
illimitable universe alone can define his name, and 
portray the image by which he is known. While he 



* Upon the authority of Doctor Ward, I stated on a former 
occasion, that Brahma — the personification of the creative attri- 
bute of Parabrahma, was " entirely destitute of a temple or wor- 
shippers." It appears, however, from the sequel of this author, 
that Brahma claims and receives a part of the ritual homage and 
festive observances common among the Hindoos. 

f The male and female symbols of creation. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 201 

is independent of the conditions of time and space, 
all things are included in him : from him they have 
proceeded, in him they centre. Moreover, he is im- 
perishable in his power as he is in his will ; the soul 
of the world ; the soul of every individual being. In 
short, the whole creation is Parabrahma, and as it 
has emanated from him, so in him it will finally be 
absorbed. Finally, Parabrahma — absolute exist- 
ence, is the form of science and of the universe. All 
worlds are one with the Supreme Being ; for from 
his will they have originated : this divine will is in- 
herent in all things, and it reveals itself in the crea- 
tion, the preservation, and the dissolution of the 
world, as well as in the forms and mutations of time.* 
It may not be uninteresting, and it certainly can- 
not be unimportant, here to inquire, what was the 
nature of the Hindoo theology originally, considered 
in its practical relation, when it had attained its 
second stage of development, or after synthetic rea- 
soning had resolved polytheism into monotheism ? 
and what is its present character according to the 
popular creed ? Originally — using this term in its 
present acceptation, it was doubtless a plain, concise 
system, as truthful as it was generally comprehensi- 
ble. Its professors were not vexed or distracted with 
subtile, metaphysical definitions. The three promi- 
nent ideas of the Deity, as they unfold themselves in 
the creation, the preservation, and the decay or de- 
struction of the world, were predicates which the 



* Gbrres Mythengeschichte ; Jones' Asiatic Researches, and 
Dissertations Relating to Asia ; Moore's Hindoo Pantheon ; Payne 
Knight, on Symbolical Language, etc. 



202 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

course of nature, and the wonders of the universe 
everywhere loudly proclaimed, and metaphysic was as 
little needed to appreciate such truths, as it was to 
understand the elementary ideas of the religion which 
the lawgiver Moses was commissioned to promul- 
gate to the Hebrews. The innocent attempt, how- 
ever, to symbolize, or clothe in the veil of allegory, 
the attributes and functions of the Deity, and thus to 
render the Godhead cognizable within the lowest 
sphere of vulgar vision, gradually led to the vitiation 
of the faith and worship of the Hindoos. By sum- 
moning hieroglyphics to the aid of practical religion, 
the Hindoo priesthood aimed originally merely to 
awaken and perpetuate a remembrance of the Deity 
among mankind ; but this laudable design was ulti- 
mately overlooked or disregarded, and instead of 
God, whom it was simply intended to typify or call 
to mind, the image or mnemonic symbol itself was 
adored as a divinity : fetichism once more resuming 
the place of monotheism in the devotion of the ple- 
beian multitude. 

Viewed in connection with the foregoing observa- 
tions, the force and relevancy of the following com- 
munication of the bramin Rammohun Roy, must be 
deemed decisive in an inquiry like the present. Ac- 
cording to the " Monthly Magazine " for June, eigh- 
teen hundred and seventeen, republished in the same 
year at Jena, in the German language, the Hindoo 
priest thus expresses himself upon this interesting 
subject : " I have noticed that in their writings, many 
Europeans endeavor to palliate, or deny the existence 
of idolatry among the Hindoos, striving to convince 
themselves that all the visible objects of divine wor- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 203 

ship among us are regarded by their votaries merely 
as symbolical representations of the Supreme Being. 
Were this the case, I should not deem it my duty to 
enter into a discussion of the question. The truth, 
however, is, the present Hindoos do not thus view the 
subject, but firmly believe in an infinite number of 
gods and goddesses, who they suppose enjoy unlim- 
ited power in their respective sphere or empire. To 
propitiate them, and not the true God, temples are 
erected, and divine worship is observed. It cannot, 
however, be doubted, and it is my intention to show, 
that this practice has originated in the symbolical 
representations of the attributes and functions of the 
true God : a truth which is now no longer remem- 
bered, and to broach which is denounced by many 
as a heresy." 

* Upon the whole, the following quotation from " A 
View of the Idolatry of the Hindoos," by Doctor 
Ward, fully coincides Vith the views laid down in the 
preceding inquiries : " The Hindoos," says he, — he 
means of course the better informed among them, — 
" have some very enlarged views of the divine influ- 
ence ; they believe that it diffuses its vivifying energies 
over the entire universe; instilling its lifegiving powers 
into every portion of animated matter. It is related 
of a learned bramhun — bramin, that on hearing the 
following lines from Pope's Essay on Man, he started 
from his seat, begged for a copy of them, and de- 
clared that the author must have been a Hindoo. 

The lines referred to are these : — 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole ; 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 



204 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

This may serve to show the opinions which the 
Hindoos entertain of the universal energy and opera- 
tion of the Deity. This energy is said to have created 
the universe ; and therefore this is the object of wor- 
ship. From the notion of God being the soul of the 
world ; and the world itself being God, under various 
forms, has arisen the Hindoo practice of paying 
divine adorations to the heavens collectively ; — to 
the sun, moon, the stars, the sea, great rivers, and all 
extraordinary appearances in nature. Even the divine 
energy itself has been personified, as a sort of holy 
spirit, and worshipped under different names." * 

The disclosure which the intelligent bramin made 
above upon the present condition of the Hindoo re- 
ligion, holds equally good in its application to the 
popular forms of devotion as they manifested them- 
selves among the ancient Egyptians in the time of 



* It is deemed proper here to reiterate the fact that all the ob- 
jects of nature referred to in the text, as well as innumerable 
others, were fetiches in the primitive ages of the world, and con- 
stituted universally the first divinities of mankind ; and that after 
the priests had arrived at the knowledge of One God, they made 
use of some of them as his symbols, or the indices of his attri- 
butes and functions, while the great mass of the human race either 
still continued to maintain its ancient relation towards them, or 
in case it did ever share the more exalted religious conceptions of 
the sacerdotal order, it relapsed again into its former fetichism and 
idolatry. These remarks, therefore, apply with equal force* to 
the Egyptian theology, a notice of which will close the present 
chapter. — G. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 205 

Herodotus. In order to obtain an eligible position 
from which we shall be able to survey, in an ample 
field of vision, the remains of a primitive fetichism 
or the later iconolatrous religious creed of two of the 
most renowned nations of antiquity, as it flourished 
at one period in the valley of the Nile, or is still 
practised on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges, 
a synopsis of the Egyptian system of faith is here 
introduced from the Pantheon JEgyptiorum of Jablon- 
ski, in the style and with the comments of Doctor 
Priestley. " According to Jablonski," writes this in- 
defatigable divine, " the knowledge and worship of 
the Supreme Being was long retained by the Egyp- 
tians,* and they did not think, with the Stoics and 
others, that he was bound by any blind fate, inde- 
pendent of his own will. This supreme intelligence 
was denominated Neitha. The same, or his princi- 
pal attribute, was also designated by the terms Phthas, 
and Kneph — Cnuphis, and in their hieroglyphics he 
was represented by a serpent. They had also an 
idea of a chaos of inert matter, out of which the Su- 
preme Being formed all things. The origin of all 
things was also denominated Athor, called by the 
Greeks the celestial Venus. It seems to have been 
all nature, or the powers of nature, personified. 

In a course of time, however, the worship of the 
Supreme Being was neglected in Egypt, as well as in 



* That is, after metaphysical induction had at last succeeded 
in proclaiming to the human mind the existence and providence 
of the Supreme Being — the God of gods; and not subsequently 
to a primitive, supernatural revelation, as our authors presume to 
take for granted. — G. 

18 



206 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

other parts of the world, and the regards of the peo- 
ple were confined to visible objects, especially the 
heavenly bodies, as having the most sensible influ- 
ence on the earth, and on which their well-being 
more immediately depended; and they worshipped 
the sun and moon under their proper names ; that 
of the former Phre, and that of the latter Io. They 
also paid some worship to the stars, and the five 
planets. These, together with the sun and moon, 
were the seven great gods of Egypt, and when they 
are called eight, the Supreme Being was included 
with them. These were the Cabari, etc. of the 
i Greeks. It is probable that the erection of obelisks 
and pyramids, with which Egypt abounded, had 
some relation to the worship of the sun, as also had 
the sacred name consisting of three letters. These 
Jablonski supposes to have been phre above men- 
tioned. But as the celebrated triliteral name among 
the Hindoos is own* and on was also at one time 
the name or title of the sun in Egypt ; whence we 
read of the priest of On, and a city of that name, 
called by the Greeks Heliopolis, sacred to him, I 
rather think that this was the mystical word in 
Egypt as well as in Hindostan. In time, however, 
the worship of the stars and planets became confined 
to the priests, who applied the knowledge they had 
of them to the purpose of calculating nativities, and 
other modes of divination. 

The next change that the religion of Egypt under- 
went was in consequence of the speculations of 

* This word, as wo have seen above, is also written aum, and 
contracted phonetically into o'm. — G. 



m ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 207 

the priests, and men of learning, concerning the 
various positions of the sun and moon with respect 
to the earth, and the other properties and powers of 
these great luminaries, and their giving them differ- 
ent names, expressive of these relations and proper- 
ties. After this, the worship of the sun and moon, 
by their proper names, gradually ceased, other terms 
being introduced, and peculiar rites appropriated to 
each ; so that in time they came to be considered as 
so many different deities ; and it is now with diffi- 
culty that they can be traced to their origin. This 
worship of the sun and moon under symbolical names, 
Jablonski thinks was accomplished in the fourth cen- 
tury after the Exodus, in consequence of a reforma- 
tion that was made in the Egyptian calendar, which 
the priests were enabled to do by the attention they 
had given to the science of astronomy. About that 
time, in other countries as well as in Egypt, the sun 
was seldom worshipped under any other names than 
such as Osiris, Baal, Moloch, Chemosh, etc., but the 
term Osiris he supposes to have been known in Egypt 
some time before the arrival of the Israelites in the 
country. Under this name the sun was considered 
as the regulator of time ; and as king of the heavens, 
he was called Ramphath. In the winter solstice he 
was* Serapis, worshipped under that name at Sino- 
pium near Memphis, and at Racotis near Alexandria. 
As beginning to emerge from this low state he was 
Harpocrates ; when arrived at the vernal equinox he 
was Amun, and under that name was worshipped at 
Thebes. In the summer solstice he was Horus, 
and considered as in his full strength he was Semo, 
and Hercules. 



208 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

About the same time that the sun was worshipped 
under the name of Osiris, the moon obtained that of 
Isis ; and in time was worshipped in preference to 
any other deity, because the mtfon was thought to 
have more influence on the earth than any other of 
the heavenly bodies. She was thought more benefi- 
cent than the sun, whose excessive heat often dried 
and burned up the fruits of the earth. Sometimes, 
however, by the term Isis was understood the fruit- 
ful part of the land of Egypt, as being made so by 
the influence of the moon ; and sometimes it was 
synonymous to the earth in general. But the moon, 
as well as the sun, was worshipped under more 
names than one. The new moon was the goddess 
Bubastis, and the full moon Butt. Considered as 
continually changing, and often punishing the crimes 
of men, she was Tithrambo, corresponding to the 
Hecate of the Greeks. She was also llythia, or Lu- 
cina, particularly invoked in childbearing. Sothis, 
or the dog-star, was peculiarly sacred to Isis, as other 
stars and planets were sacred to other deities who 
were supposed to direct their influences. The heliacle 
rising of this star being when the sun was in Cancer, 
and the rising of the Nile being then first perceptible, 
this great event was chiefly ascribed to the moon. 
This was in the month called Thoth, the first in the 
Egyptian year, and thought to be the birthday of 
the world.* The worship of the Egyptians was not 



* The heliacle rising of Sothis, or the dog-star, at the summer 
solstice defined, first, the solar year of three hundred and sixty- 
five days ; and secondly, the great division of time including four- 
teen hundred and sixty-one years — as has already been men- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 209 

confined to the celestial bodies. The river Nile was 
an object of worship to them at a very early period, 
being considered as the father and the saviour of the 
country. Temples were erected to this river, and 
priests appointed to serve in them, especially at Ni- 
lopolis ; but in every considerable city there were 
priests of the Nile, and among other offices it was 
their business to bury in sacred monuments all per- 
sons who were killed by crocodiles, or drowned in 
the river, thinking there was something divine in 
them. The Nile was sometimes called the earthly 
Osiris, and the Bull Apis was considered as his sym- 
bol, or of the fertility which Egypt derived from 
it. Before this river entered Egypt it was called 
Siris, which Mr. Bruce says signifies a dog in those 
countries, and thence the name Sirius, or the dog- 
star. 

Besides the worship of benevolent deities, the 
Egyptians, like all other heathen nations, paid divine 
honors to a malevolent one, commonly called Ty- 
plwn; he being considered as the author of almost 
all evil, and they worshipped him with a view of 
averting the evils which they thought it was in his 
power to inflict upon them. To him they once sac- 
rificed men with red hair, he being, they said, of 
that color : on which account they held it in great 
abhorence, but afterwards red oxen. When they 



tioned, called the sothis-period or cycle, and "which was the basis 
or norma of the sacerdotal system of chronology. When it is said 
in the text that the Egyptian year commenced in the month Thoth, 
reference is had to the civil year. — G. 

18* 



210 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

did not gain their object by this means, they took 
some of the animals that were sacred to him into 
a dark place, where they terrified and beat them; 
and if that did not answer, they killed them out- 
right." 






SECTION III. 

THE RELIGIOUS CREED OF THE SCANDINAVIANS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SCANDINAVIAN DEITIES. 

Prologue. 

Whether Odin or Thor, the former of whom re- 
sponding also to the names of Woden and Wodan, 
is entitled to preeminence of rank in the Scandina- 
vian pantheon, is a question which has not hereto- 
fore been clearly determined. While the opponents 
of Thor concede to his friends that it is common to 
find in the popular creed of the mythologies of an- 
tiquity, that the god of thunder — as Thor or Jupiter, 
is represented as the chief of the celestial powers, and 
that he may therefore, as it is contended by his advo- 
cates, have been the supreme god of the Teutonic 
race, during its residence in Asia, they insist that it 
is a well-ascertained fact that in the more recent or 
historical times, all the tribes of these people re- 
garded Odin as the father of the gods ; and that in 

C211) 



212 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the Eddaic Poems, he is invariably portrayed in this 
exalted capacity. Let us therefore proceed briefly 
to investigate the claims of the respective parties. 
Adam of Bremen mentions the statues of the divine 
triad, Odin, Thor, and Frey, placed one above the 
other in the temple of Upsal, in the same order in 
which their prototypes are here enumerated. This 
priority of position evidently implies a superiority of 
Odin over Thor. According to another version of 
the same subject, the images of the Teutonic trinity 
were placed in such a relation to each other, that 
Thor occupied the middle, Odin the right, and Frey 
the left side of him ; a grouping which seems to 
attach the most weight to Thor. 

The most solemn judicial oath among the Scandi- 
navians, administered within the sacred altar-ring, was 
taken in the name of Frey, Njord, and the Almighty 
God. By the latter designation, the Icelanders and 
the Norwegians understood Thor, the Swedes and 
the Danes, Odin. Here, again, is a parity of pat- 
ronage and an equality of rank. I will only add that 
the titles which appropriately distinguished the per- 
sons in the trinity, were the High, the equally High, 
and the Third. Odin is, however, called the Alfadvr 
— the father of all, or the Supreme God in the strict 
metaphysical acceptation of the term, as it is affirm ed 
by some ; while others, and among these the distin- 
guished Norse scholar, Finn Magnusen, maintain that 
this comprehensive epithet is only popularly, and as it 
were by a hyperbolical concession, applied to Odin, 
whom they consider as a principal mundane divinity, 
but altogether different from the absolutely supreme 
and supermundane deity. From the cosmogony of the 






IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 213 

Scandinavians, it is evident that Odin is a creature, 
and not even the first in the scale of sentient, organic 
existence. Genealogy traces his descent to Bor and 
Besla, and he is therefore the mixed offspring of an 
illustrious sire and a corrupt mother. A truth, which 
must forever annihilate Odin's pretensions to the 
rank of an absolutely supreme godhead. Prior to his 
existence, there was a God in statu abscondito, who 
sent the warm air into the chaotic abyss called Gin- 
nunga-gap, and this incident was the first display of 
a plastic energy in creation. According to Mone, 
every thing in Ginnunga-gap, — the foetal vase of 
the world, the gods, and the giants, and whatever 
proceeds from them, is subject to the change and dis- 
solution consequent upon the existing dualism in the 
universe. Only the being who dwells beyond the 
limits of the world, and who impelled the dissolving 
heat from Muspellheim into Ginnunga-gap, is with- 
out mutation and eternal. The gods who descended 
on the maternal side, from giants, are in a state of 
perpetual warfare with this branch of their kindred ; 
that is, mind and matter are involved in a ceaseless 
conflict ; and the mortality of the gods is necessarily 
predicated upon their organic connection with ma- 
terial existence. This death or mortality is, however, 
not an extinction but an evolution of being, and a 
repetition of it is gain, — the plus in the problem of 
being. 

In his " Critical Examination of the Leading 
Doctrines of the Scandinavian System," Biackwell 
thus concludes his remarks upon this subject: " We 
should be inclined to conjecture that the Scandina- 
vian cosmogonists may have regarded Odin as a real 



214 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

mundane deity. The problem which they had to 
solve, was the origin of the universe. They might 
have had recourse to the more pleasing, and at the 
same time far more rational system that presupposes 
a Supreme Essence — a spirit moving upon the face 
of the waters — whereas the one they adopted only 
recognizes matter which becomes at length sufficient- 
ly organized to produce Odin, Vili, and Ve.* They 
may possibly have applied these names to designate 
three modes of action of one deity, — Odin, or All- 
Father ; but whether they regarded him as a corporeal 
being, or as the anima mundi — the intelligent and 
co-ordinate principle of the universe — we think they 
ascribed to this being or this intelligence, the further 
work of creation typified by the slaughter of Ymir, 
and the formation of the earth and the heavens from 
his body, as it lay extended in Ginnunga-gap." f 

After a fair investigation of the subject under con- 
sideration, it must be admitted that Odin is undoubt- 
edly the chief mundane god among the Scandinavians, 
and that in war especially, he towered far above the 
rest of his compeers : he was emphatically the Mars 
among the sons of Teut. J It cannot be denied also, 



* Was not the thaw-wind blowing from Muspellheim at the 
bidding of the unseen God, an animus, a breath, a spirit brooding 
over the waters of Ginnunga-gap ? As will be seen hereafter, no 
fact in Scandinavian cosmogony is more clearly established than 
this. — G. 

f Not to Odin alone but to him and his two brothers Vili and 
Ve, is the creation of the world ascribed, as we shall have occa- 
sion to show in our chapter on Scandinavian cosmogony. — G. 

% Teut, or Tuisco, is the hypothetical founder of the Teutonic 
race, or one of their oldest gods, whose name distinguished his 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 215 

that the traditions, the life, and the religion of the 
Scandinavians, as well as of the Germanic branch of 
the Teutonic race, mainly centres in Odin. And 
Odinism and Scandinavinism are, in many respects, 
synonymous terms. 

The Scandinavan mythology, like the people whose 
name it bears, has its sturdy root in the plains of 
upper Asia. It was from this region that a part of 
the Teutonic people, under the leadership of Odin 
the hero, immigrated into Europe in the age preced- 
ing the birth of Christ. And there can be little doubt 
that it is a vigorous branch of the prolific Hindoo- 
Persian stem. The deities who figure in its ample 



votaries. Among the five or six Teutonic deities who have con- 
ferred their names upon the days of the week, Teut, or Tuisco, 
claims to be one, and to him, according to Walz, Tuesday — in 
German Dienstag, is sacred. " Dienstag," says he v " which in the 
old German was written Dingstag, derives its name from Tuisco, 
whom the ancient Germans worshipped as the god of Justice. 
From Tuiscotag, were formed Tuistag and Tistag." At last Din- 
stag, or Dingstag, gave nominal distinction to this day. The root 
of this term in the old Norse, as we learn from M. Mallet, is ihinga, 
which in process of time was changed into thing : it was used as 
an appellative denoting a deliberative or judicial assembly, com- 
posed of all the free citizens of the nation, and called Al-thing. 
The Al-thing was held annually in summer, and lasted sixteen 
days. Our French authority upon this subject, already noticed, 
ignoring Tuisco, derives not only the English, but every other 
Teutonic appellation by which this day is distinguished, from Tyr, 
a warrior deity, and the protector of champions and brave men. 
" From Tyr," says he, in the language of his translator, Bishop 
Percy, " is derived the name given to the third day of the week, 
in most of the Teutonic languages, and which has been. rendered 
in Latin by Dies Martis. Old Norse, Tirsdagr, Tisdagr ; Swed- 
ish, Tisdag ; Danish, Tirsdag ; German, Dienstag ; Dutch, Ding- 



216 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

creed, are the personifications of the elementary con- 
stituents, combinations, and operations of the uni- 
verse ; or in other words, of the laws and manifesta- 
tion of physical nature : they are, however, especially 
represented as the controllers of the astronomical 
year ; as the governors of the world ; and as the ad- 
ministrators of human affairs. 

The Norse names of the Scandinavian deities, are 
A's, god, A'esir, gods, A'synja, goddess, Asynjor, god- 
desses. A concise outline of the character and 
functions of some of these frigid divinities, is all that 
will be attempted or that can be reasonably expected 
in this place. Of Odin little is necessary to be said, 



stag ; Anglo-Saxon, Tyrsdaeg, Tyvesdaeg, Tivesdaeg ; English, 
Tuesday." The fourth day of the week was honored with the 
name of the principal mundane divinity of the Teulones, known 
as Odin, Woden, or Wodan, and designated, writes Walz, Wo- 
daniag or Wonstag, being still denominated Vodenstag by the 
Danes. The etymological deduction of the name of this day, is 
thus stated by M. Mallet : " Old Norse, Odinsdagr ; Swedish and 
Danish, Onsdag ; Anglo-Saxon, Wodenesdaeg, Wodnesdaeg ; Eng- 
lish, Wednesday ; Dutch, Woensdag." " The fifth day of the week," 
he adds, " was consecrated to Thor. Old Norse, Thorsdagr ; 
Swedish and Danish, Torsdag; Anglo-Saxon, Thuresdaeg, Tlmrs- 
daeg ; English, Thursday ; German, Donncrstag ; Dutch, Donder- 
dag — the Thunderer's day." Of Friday, or Frcyja's day, sacred 
to the Venus of the Teutonic people, he thus disposes : " Old 
Norse, Frcydagr, Friadagr ; Swedish and Danish, Fredag ; Anglo- 
Saxon, Frigedaeg ; Dutch, Vrijdag ; German, Freytag." As to 
Saturday, or the old German Satertag, it is so named from Saturn 
or Sater — Surtur, properly written Surtr, the god of time, or 
Chronos : ay, the Supreme Being himself, among the Greeks, the 
Teutonic race, etc. — G- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 217 

as the reader must be already tolerably familiar with 
his celestial majesty. Not only does he respond to 
the name Alfadir, but to that of Valfadir — Wahl- 
Vater ; for he chooses for his sons all those who 
bravely fall in battle. It is for their especial benefit 
that he has prepared Valhalla and Vingolf, where 
they are distinguished by the title of Einherjar — 
select heroes. The insignia of this warlike god, the 
Mars par excellence of the Teutonic people, are a 
golden casque, a resplendent cuirass, and a most 
formidable scimitar. 

In his highest planetary power and effulgence, 
Odin is recognized as the sun-god — the primary 
impersonation of the zodiacal cycle. Frigga, the 
queen of the Norse pantheon, a fair and graceful 
goddess, is the wife of Alfadir, and the same as the 
goddess Hertha — the earth, among the ancient Ger- 
mans. She has the faculty of foreseeing the desti- 
nies of mankind, but the caution never to reveal 
them. In this rare vaticinal gift, she is said to have 
stood unrivalled among the Scandinavian divinities. 

Thor is a son of Odin, and like the rest of the 
Norse deities, he is exemplary in his obedience to- 
wards the common father of the Aesir race. He is 
decidedly regarded as the most powerful of his com- 
peers. Thrudheim — the realm of strength, is his 
celestial abode. He is emphatically the Hercules 
among these northern deities, and continually en- 
gaged in combating giants and other typified princi- 
ples of evil. The god of thunder appears painted on 
a car drawn by two rams or he-goats, whose heads 
are incased in silver bridles, while his own awful 
brow is encircled with a wreath of stars. A team is 
19 



218 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

of the highest importance to him ; for he travels al- 
most incessantly, upon the electric wheels of the 
hissing, rumbling thunderclouds! His usual em- 
blems are a crown upon his head, a sceptre in one 
hand, and a mallet in the other. His mallet, a 
veritable thunderbolt, he is in the habit of hurling 
into the air against the rebellious frost and mountain- 
giants ; and many have been the fractured skulls 
which this mischievous race has had occasion to de- 
plore. 

Ovid thus graphically delineates the manner in 
which the giants were accustomed to wage war 
against heaven, and the terrible expedient which Ju- 
piter, the Thor of Scandinavia, invariably adopted 
to demolish their proud bulwarks, and hurl the inso- 
lent foe to the eartji : — 

" Nor were the gods themselves more safe above,* 
Against beleaguer'd heaven the giants move, ■ 
Hills piled on hills, on mountains mountains lie, 
To make their mad approaches to the sky ; 
Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time 
To avenge with thunder their audacious crime. 
Red lightning play'd along the firmament, 
And their demolish'd works to pieces rent. 
Singed with the flames, and with the bolts transfix'd, 
With native earth their blood the monsters mix'd. 
The blood, endued with animating heat, 
Did, in the impregnant earth, new sons beget. 
They, like the seed from which they sprung, accursed, 
Against the gods immortal hatred nursed ; 
An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood, 
Expressing their original from blood." 

* This line of the poet alludes to the iron age of the world, 
when vice in its multiform shapes, represented as so many 
giants, not content to have banished virtue from the earth, aimed 
also to pollute heaven with its unhallowed touch. — G. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 219 

Whenever Thor wishes to grasp the handle of his 
terrible weapon, the thunderbolt or electric mallet, 
he is obliged to put on his iron gauntlets. He also 
wears a magical belt, known as the belt of strength, 
and whenever he girds it about his divine person, his 
celestial power is doubly augmented. 

Baldur * is the mildest, the wisest, and the most 
eloquent of all the Ae'sir ; and such too is the un- 
swerving rectitude of his character, that his decision 
is never reversed, or its legality even suspected. He 
likewise is Odin's son, and universally esteemed in 
the creed of the Scandinavians as the preeminently 
good god. Such is the extraordinary lustre of his 
person and features, that a halo of the most daz- 
zling glory eradiates from them. His hair is white 
as the virgin snow. This benignant and holy being 
lives in Breidablik — the region of ample vision. As 
the highest type of spiritual perfection and ethical 
excellence which can distinguish a mundane divinity, 
Baldur is the personification of all that is morally 
great and good, and therefore the converse of Loki — 
the satan in the Norse system of faith, who always 
hates him with the force and intensity of an inveter- 
ate malice, and never ceases to persecute and annoy 
him till at last he succeeds to accomplish his destruc- 
tion : sin prevails over holiness, and now the death 
of the gods and the dissolution of the world, are rap- 



* The proper orthography of Baldur, also written Ballder, is 
Baldr or Balldr ; but as the English Grammar recognizes no similar 
syllabical law, I have followed the example of other authors and 
written the Norse words which end thus, either by introducing a 
vowel into the final syllable, or by rejecting the final consonant. 



220 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

idly approaching. Ay, the gods too, to divest them- 
selves of the gross material elements with which their v 
natures are allied, must die; but their death is an 
evolution from a less to a more perfect state of ex- 
istence. Man likewise needs purgation and further 
development ; and even the material world is suscep- 
tible of improvement, and destined to experience 
renovation. Death is life in embryo. Baldur's body 
is burned, — the prelude and emblem of the confla- 
gration of the world, and his ashes are committed to 
a watery grave in the sea : he returns again to his 
origin, and the origin of all creation. — the dropping 
waters in Ginnunga-gap, warmed and fructified by 
the breath of the Almighty ! Baldur the immaculate 
— the saviour, goes to Hel* the abode of the dead : 
he has fallen a victim to the temporarily omnipotent 
power of evil. 

Nanna grieves to such a degree at the untimely 
fate of her beloved Baldur, that she too dies and fol- 
lows her husband into the spirit- world. Baldur gives 
his gold -ring, Draupner, to Hermod, who has come, 
but failed to procure his liberation from Hel, to pre- 
sent it as a keepsake to Odin. Nanna also sends 
Frigga a necklace, beside other costly gifts, and to 
Fulla a gold finger-ring ; the pledges and symbols of 
a palingenesia and perpetuity of the nobler elements, 
and diviner forms of the lower and upper world ; for 
both are inclosed in the Worroltring — the world- 



* Hel, in the Scandinavian mythology, is synonymous with the 
hell, or Hades — the lower regions of other creeds, with the im- 
portant exception, however, that it does not imply either a place 
or a state of punishment. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 221 

ring, which He that sent the Muspell-breeze into 
Ginnunga-gap, assigned as the ample but unalterably 
fixed limit of the duration of the universe. 

The myth continues to inform us that some of the 
gods, as Baldur, Vidar, Vali, etc., shall survive this 
wreck of time, and crash of worlds ; that a new earth 
all verdant and lovely, with delightful fields where 
the grain will grow in spontaneous profusion, shall 
emerge from the sea ; and that a man named Lif- 
thrasir — the longlived, and a woman known as 
Lif — life, lying concealed during the conflagration, 
in Hodmimir's forest, and subsisting upon the dew of 
the morning, shall replenish the rejuvenated world 
with their offspring. Njord dwells in the heavenly 
mansion Noatim. He is the Neptune of the Scan- 
dinavians ; has dominion over the winds ; checks the 
fury of the sea and of the fire ; and is worshipped 
with peculiar ardor by seafarers and fishermen. "His 
lineage is not that of the Aesir generally ; for he was 
born and bred in Vanaheim — the abode of the Va- 
nir : the personifications of mind and spirituality. 
The Vanir gave him as a hostage to the Aesir, re- 
ceiving from them Hoenir in his stead. By this 
means peace was restored between them and the 
gods. Njord is, therefore, to be regarded as the medi- 
ator between a mixed and pure spirituality. The 
name of his heroic wife is Skadi, the daughter of 
Thjassi the giant. The rocky regions of Thrymheim, 
mark the locality of her residence. She is decidedly 
the Minerva of the Norse pantheon. Fastening on 
her snow-skades and taking her bow, she pleasantly 
passes her time in the chase of savage beasts, and is 

19* 



222 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

hence called Ondurdis — snow-skates ! She is the 
feminine impersonation of virtue combating vice. 

Frey and Freyja claim to be the children of Njord. 
They are celebrated for their power and beauty, and 
Frey can justly boast to be one of the most renowned 
of the gods. Rain and sunshine, as well as all the 
fruits of the earth, are under his august supervision ; 
and in order to secure the blessings of riches, peace, 
and an abundant harvest, his name is ever devoutly 
to be invoked. The hermaphrodite formation of this 
divinity, is to typify productiveness. 

On some occasions of state, Frey rides out in a 
car drawn by a boar, named Gullinbursti : a safe 
way of travelling probably, but an awkward and slow 
one we are inclined to think ! Freyja — the Frau, his 
lovely sister, is the Venus, or goddess of love, among 
the Teutonic people, and the most propitious of all 
their female divinities. Her habitation in heaven is 
denominated Folkvang, which literally signifies the 
folk's mead, or dwelling, and which contains a hall call- 
ed Sessrymnir — the room of many seats, which is ap- 
propriated to a moiety of all who die in battle ; for to 
whatever field of battle the goddess rides, she - boldly 
asserts her right to one half of the slain, while she 
cheerfully resigns the other half to Odin as his just 
share. The charming Freyja is in the habit of sal- 
lying forth from her celestial abode in a carriage, 
moving after the soft and noiseless tread of a team 
of cats. 

The learned Icelander, Finn Magnusen, regards 
Frey and Freyja as the personifications of the sun 
and moon, and in our opinion justly so. Tyr, the 
most daring and intrepid of all the gods, next de- 
mands our notice. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 223 

It is he who dispenses valor in war, and hence 
warriors devoutly invoke his celestial aid. Though 
his wisdom deservedly ranks high, his bravery is pre- 
eminent ; and a man who excels others in strength 
and puissant feats, is distinguished by the title of 
Tyr — strong. 

Bragi's wisdom and eloquence confer upon him 
an enviable distinction among the gods. In poetry 
he is universally admitted to be unrivalled, and he 
may therefore be set down as the poet-laureate at 
the court of the Scandinavian divinities. Bragr is 
accordingly the Norse name of the poetic art. To 
brag is derived from the root braga, to glisten, to 
shine, or from bragga, to adorn, and a braggart is, I 
regret to say it, a poet ! The name of Bragi's 
consort is Iduna or Ithun. To her keeping are in- 
trusted the golden apples which the gods, when they 
feel old age approaching, have only to taste to become 
young again. Iduna' s apples, we may remark, typify 
the ripe, mellow fruit, generated in the season of 
summer. As long as the gods, — physical nature 
personified, subsist upon this food : the reward and 
the evidence of their agrarian activity, they live. 
The fruit of one year is the seed of another, and 
hence the more the gods eat, the more abundant will 
be the crops. The betrayal of Iduna with her aureal 
fruit into the power of Thiassi, a notorious frost- 
giant, through the atrocious treachery of Loki, is em- 
blematical of winter and its sterility. 

Heimdall the white god, resides in Himinbjorg, — 
heaven-mountains, at the termination of Bifrost, the 
aerial or rainbow bridge. He is the warder of the 
gods, and is therefore placed on the confines of heaven, 



224 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

to prevent the hostile giants from forcing a pas- 
sage over the bridge : he is, in short, the valiant de- 
fender of mind against matter, and of organized life 
against inorganic existence. His important vocation 
demands his presence everywhere in his vast empire, 
and to facilitate his progress from place to place, he 
makes use of his famous steed Gulltopp — the golden- 
maned. 

Forseti, the son of Baldur and Nanna, the daugh- 
ter of Nef, occupies the celestial mansion Glit- 
nir. By the tenure of his office, he is the consti- 
tutional arbitrator of all questions of law, and all 
litigants who submit their cases to his decision, go 
away perfectly satisfied with their treatment, and 
fully reconciled to each other. Indeed, they have no 
reason to find fault ; for his judgment is invariably 
founded upon the nature of things or the condi- 
tions of being, and by it every one must necessarily 
abide. 

Ullur, the step-son of Thor, is not only a skilful 
archer, but as an accomplished skater on the bleak 
fields of frozen snow between the Baltic and the Arc- 
tic ocean, he is declared to be unequalled. "While 
in personal appearance he is admitted by all to be 
exceedingly prepossessing, his merits as a warrior are 
undisputed. 

As to Vidar, notwithstanding the thick clumsy shoes 
which he wears, and his proverbially taciturn dispo- 
sition, he is a god in whom his compeers place the 
utmost reliance in critical conjunctures ; for, in won- 
derful prowess and courage, he is almost equal to the 
potent, daring Thor himself, 

Of Vali, who is represented as the son of Odin 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 225 

and Rinda — the crust of the earth, though accord- 
ing to the cosmogony of the Scandinavians, he is the 
brother of the Alfadir, we need only state that he is 
favorably known on account of his martial qualities, 
and that he is the worthy symbol of the nobler strug- 
gles of good against evil. 

Though the number of the Scandinavian divini- 
ties or deistic personifications, compared with that 
of some other ancient nations, is exceedingly small, 
it deserves to be remarked that the preceding enu- 
meration of them comprises only about one half of 
the celestial nomenclature. Some, whose importance 
or mythic connection may especially claim our atten- 
tion hereafter, will be introduced to the notice of the 
reader, though it is to be presumed that by a careful 
attention to, the foregoing delineations, he must be 
already pretty well acquainted with the character 
and history of this interesting and ingenuous family 
of deities. 



CHAPTER n. 

THE SCANDINAVIAN GODS IN THEIR PLANETARY RELA- 
TION TO MANKIND. 

The abodes or mansions of the gods, noticed in 
the previous chapter, are, in the opinion of some 
learned Norse scholars, the zodiacal signs in the eclip- 
tic, and hence they suppose the Scandinavian my- 
thology to be founded upon astronomy, and that its 



226 THE HEATHEN 'RELIGION 

gods are planetary gods, in which capacity they are 
to be especially viewed in their relation to the three 
leading planets in our system, the earth, the sun, 
and the moon, whose influence upon human affairs 
is most decidedly felt, and universally acknowledged. 
Contemplated in this light, we proceed to an eluci- 
dation of the subject. 

Thor, the opener of the year, begins his reign at 
the period of the vernal equinox, in the sign of Aries ; 
and as such he is symbolical of time and terrestrial 
fecundity. Next comes Ullur in Taurus, when the 
earth begins to develop its latent energies, and gives 
promise of future plenty ; and therefore the horn of 
taurus, or the ox, is typical of agrarian abundance : 
it is the horn of plenty, so frequently quoted in the 
ornate effusions of poets and orators. Frey, the 
floral god, who is at once the lovely and the loving, 
takes his turn in Gemini, and is now in the bloom 
and vigor of his strength, of which his sword is the 
emblem. June, or Cancer, claims the presence of 
Odin, and the sun-god is now in the culmination of 
his divine might : his creative and maturing planet- 
ary influence is complete. At this point of the eclip- 
tic the sun begins its recession from the northern 
hemisphere, — Odin dies ; retires to his hall Valhalla, 
in July ; and in August, he already occupies Glad- 
sheim — glad-home, or the abode of bliss, as the fa- 
ther of souls. Skadi succeeds in Libra, or Sep- 
tember ; and Baldur, the good, takes his station in 
Scorpion, or October, after the autumnal equinox. 
As to Heimdall, the preserver of the planetary world, 
ne demands Sagittarius, or November, for his portion 
of zodiacal sway ; while Freyja, the delight, is con- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 227 

tent with December, or Capricorn. Forseti takes 
possession of Aquarius, or January ; Njord of Pisces, 
or February ; and Vidar, without any definite abode, 
closes the cycle of the year, of the quiet, silent de- 
parture of which he is the type. Hence he is called 
the silent god. 

According to another planetary arrangement of 
the year, and of the gods, Ullur commences the zodi- 
acal revolution in Sagittarius, and is successively fol- 
lowed by Frey, Vali, Saga, Odin, Skadi, Baldur, 
Heimdall, Freyja, Forseti, Njord, and Vidar. Which 
of these systems approaches nearest to the truth, I 
am unable to determine : both .may have prevailed 
at different periods of the world ; but this I know, 
that the year among the northern nations of Europe 
was computed from one winter solstice to another, 
as the month was from one new moon to the next. 
They accordingly called the night, at the winter sol- 
stice, the mother-night, as that which produced all the 
rest ; as, in short, the birth of time ! 

The care which the gods exercised over the souls 
and bodies of mankind in the different stages of their 
present existence, corresponds to the attention which 
they paid to the government of the solar year in its 
various phases, and may be microcosmically thus ex- 
pressed, in reference to the body : Freyja is the 
birth, Forseti the nurse or guardian, Njord the nour- 
ishment, Thor the vigor, Ullur the growth, Frey the 
pubescent period, Odin the procreation and death.* 

* The philosophy of the Teutonic people taught them that 
generation is not only life but death — in embryo, and to this 
proposition the science of biology of the nineteenth century, 
must bow assent. 



228 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

In relation to the soul, Saga is the nurse, Odin, in 
his character of Alfadir, the food, Skadi the strength, 
Baldur the development, Heimdall the consumma- 
tion, when it is ripe for an entrance into a higher 
sphere of being. This ripeness of the soul for a 
change, expresses itself in a longing after greater 
perfection ; and hence Heimdall, who inhabits Him- 
inbjorg — the heaven-mountains, and who is both 
the watchman of heaven and the soul of the world, 
is also the conductor of the souls into celestial bliss, 
and the final realization of their ardent and irrepres- 
sible desires after a happier and more exalted state 
of existence. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SCANDINAVIAN COSMOGONY. 

In the dayspring of ages, or the beginning of time, 
according to the mytho-cosmogonic poem, entitled 
the Voluspa — the song of the prophetess, the prime- 
val state of material creation, was a vast, void abyss, 
called Ginnunga-gap : the cup or gulf of delusion; 
thus denominated agreeably to the macrocosmic creed 
of the Teutonic people, who taught that generation 
is a union of the two antitheses of light and dark- 
ness, or fire and water, whose resultant, or offspring, 
is a delusion or death under the semblance of life. 
It is, too, the magical link between the north and the 
south poles of creation. Into this capacious cup — 
light, as imponderable ether, flowed from the south, 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 229 

or at least from a torrid region, the envenomed 
streams of Elivagar — the dropping waters, and the 
further they receded from their source, the more the 
venom in them — the heat, considered as the antag- 
onism of cold, became reduced in its temperature, 
and at last the fluid mass congealed in Ginnunga- 
gap.* The northern, nebulous, and dark region of 
this inane matrix of a rising world, is Nebelheim, or 
Mist-home, commonly known as Nilfheim — a dis- 
mal place of ice and night and mist : the genesis of 
the world. There is located Hvergelmir, or the spring 
of hot water, from which issue twelve rivers. The 
southern tract of the abyss was illuminated by the 
glowing rays emanating from the sphere or abode of 
light, designated Muspellheim, the place in which 
headed the waters of Elivagar. From this torrid 
zone of the infant universe, blew a scorching wind, 
which dissolved the frozen waters of the Elivagar : f 
they distilled in living drops, and he that sent the hot 



* The venom which they rolled along hardened, as does dross 
that runs from a furnace, and became ice : a sufficient quantity of 
heat was abstracted to convert the water into a gelid mass. When 
the rivers flowed no longer, the venom gathered over it — the ice : 
the heat escaping from the freezing waters, froze to rime, and in 
this manner were formed in Ginnunga-gap many layers of con- 
gealed vapor, piled one over the other. Such being the condition 
of the northern part of the abyss, whilst everywhere within were 
whirlwinds and fleeting mists, and the southern portion of it was 
luminous with the sparks and scintillations that were wafted into 
it from Muspellheim. — Northern Antiquities. 

f In the following lines, translated by Dryden, Ovid gives an 
analogous picture of nascent creation : — 

" Heat and cold were in one body fix'd, 
And soft with hard, and light with heavy, mix'd." 

20 



230 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

wind, created out of them the giant Ymir, in the 
likeness of man:* a fact which represents heat, in 
its various modifications, as the active, and cold, in 
its different phases, as the passive, principle of gen- 
eration. Simultaneously with Ymir, and in the 
same manner, the cow Audhumla — the symbol of 
the nobler parts of matter, and hence the antithesis 
of the giant, is called into existence. From her 
capacious udder flowed four streams of milk, which 
constituted the luscious and healthful nourishment 
of Ymir. By licking the stones that were covered 
with salt and hoar-frost, she succeeded, in the space 
of three days, in producing a superior being, called 
Bur or Buri, in the similitude of man ; fair propor- 
tioned, beautiful, and strong. It now happened that 
Ymir fell asleep and sweated profusely — the sweat 
appears to have been blood; the result was that 
from the pit of his left arm was born a man and a 
woman, while one of his feet engendered with the 
other a son. 

From this marvellous progeny sprang the race of 
frost-giants — Hrimthursen ; a race evil and depraved 

* The being who put forth this creative energy must of course 
be God, or the -metaphysically Supreme Being in statu abscondito. 
Is he the same as Suitor, who sits upon the borders of the lumi- 
nous and glowing regions of Muspellheim, to guard it ? " In his 
nan d " — SurWs, we are told in the Northern Antiquities, " he 
beareth a flaming falchion, and at the end of the world, he shall 
come forth to combat, and shall vanquish all the gods, and con- 
sume the universe with fire." To me it seems evident that the 
invisible God, or God in statu abscondito, who sent the genial heat 
into Ginnunga-gap from Muspellheim, and created Ymir, etc., is 
the God of gods, or Surtur, who will survive when the gods and 
the world shall be no more ! 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 231 

like Ymir their sire. After this, Buri's son, Bor mar- 
ried a Joten, or giant-woman, whose name was Besla, 
the daughter of Bolthorn, and the illustrious fruit of 
this union, were the three gods Odin, Vili, and Ve.* 
The following tragic incident clearly shows that up 
to this period, the displays of creative power are to 
be regarded as mere preludes to the formation of the 
universe ; Ymir and the sons of Bor scarcely pos- 
sessed a trait of character in common, and their 
uncongenial tempers naturally made them inimical 
towards each other. What might reasonably be 
expected under such inauspicious circumstances, 
soon happened, and the latter fell upon the unfor- 
tunate giant and slew him ; and such were the co- 
pious discharges of blood from his wounds, that the 
whole race of ice and frost-giants was drowned in 
its floods, except Bergelmir, who, with his wife, 
saved himself in a bark, and was thus permitted to 
transmit the younger branch of the giant-race. The 
time has now arrived when the world is to be fairly 
ushered into existence, and the three divine sons of 
Bor, dragging the murdered remains of their victim 
into the midst of Ginnunga-gap, begin the stupen- 
dous task of its creation. Of the flesh of Ymir, they 



* Ymir, or the mundane body, is a hermaphrodite, and the em- 
blem of rude, undivided matter : organic food sustains. Audhum- 
la — also written Audhumbla, is the primeval realization of a 
distinct gender in the individual, and the impersonation of the 
idea of mother of all things, both of the world and of the gods. 
The salt which she licked from the stones, is the mineral which 
was universally regarded by the Teutonic people as the motive 
and formative principle in organic creation; and among them, 
was literally the salt of the earth ! 



232 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

made the earth ; of his blood, the ocean and the 
rivers ; of his huge bones, the mountains ; of his 
teeth, his jaw-bones, and the splinters of some of his 
broken bones, the rocks and the cliffs ; of his hair, 
the trees ; of his brain, the clouds ; and of his eye- 
brows, Midgard — the abode of man. Besides, of 
his ample skull, they constructed the vault of heaven, 
and poised it upon the four remotest pillars of the 
earth, placing under each pillar a dwarf, the name 
of each respectively corresponding to one of the 
cardinal points of the horizon. The sparks and cin- 
ders which were wafted into the abyss from the 
tropical region of Muspellheim, they fixed in the 
centre of the celestial concave, above and below 
Ginnunga-gap, to supply it and the earth with light 
and heat. 

At this stage of creation the important science 
of chronology was introduced, and days and years 
began to be distinguished and numbered. The 
world being now in a suitable condition for the habi- 
tation of man, the progenitors of our race, according 
to the Voluspa, were created in the following man- 
ner : Three mighty and beneficent Aesir, leaving the 
assembly of the gods, took a walk to the sea-strand, 
and there found two trees, or as some assert, Uvo 
sticks, floating upon the water, powerless and with- 
out destiny. Odin gave them breath and life ; Honir, 
souls and motion ; and Lodur, speech, beauty, sight, 
and hearing.* They then called the man Askr — 

* In their account of this interesting and wonderful performance, 
the Northern Antiquities vary a little from the text. From them, 
it appears that the creators of the first human pair, are all sons of 
Bor ; that the oldest of them — Odin, conferred upon the man and 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT, 233 

the ash, and the woman, Emfila — the alder, in allu- 
sion to their dendronic origin ; and these were the 
individuals from whom have sprung mankind, des- 
tined to reside in Midgard — mid-garden, mid-girth, 
mid-sphere : the habitable globe. It may be observed 
here, that the component parts of man correspond to 
matter, mind, and organic life, and that the first has 
its type or analogue in the Joten, or giants ; the 
second, in the Vanir, or pure spirits — die Wan en ; 
and the last, in the Aesir, or gods — beings inter- 
mediate between both.* Midgard, or the abode of 
man, already adverted to, yet briefly claims our 
attention. According to Eddaic lore, it is necessary 
in order to form a correct idea of the topography of 
Midgard, to conceive the earth to be as round as a 
ring-, or as a disk in the midst of the ocean, encircled 
by Jormungand, the great Midgard-serpent, holding 
its tail in its mouth, the outer shores of the ocean 
forming the mountainous regions of Jotunheim — 
giant-home, assigned in fee-simple to the perverse 

woman life and souls ; the second — Vili, motion and knowledge ; 
and the third — Ve, the gifts mentioned above, with the addition 
of raiment. 

* All creation, even the gods not excepted, being made of 
Ymir the" mortal, and mundane body, is liable to dissolution. 
Death originates birth or being ^*- as is exemplified by the dead 
body of Ymir, and birth, death ; and death is therefore — delight- 
ful thought ! the pledge of life ; the transition-state of existence. 
Death inflicted upon Ymir, is the unhappy cause of perpetual 
enmity between the sons of Bbr and the giants : the symbol of the 
dualism in creation — rude matter and organic being, and mind 
and sensuousness. Only the Vanir — the impersonations of mind 
and ideality, are indestructible as the pure spirit-emanations of the 
Eternal. 

20* 



234 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION 



Ymir race by the generous sons of Bor. In the 
centre of this terrestrial ring or disk, these indefati- 
gable divinities erected a citadel from the eyebrows 
of Ymir, against the inroads of their belligerent 
frontier neighbors; and this is Midgard, the work 
of gods and the home of man. It is, therefore, the 
duty of the latter to defend and cherish it against 
all the boreal powers of evil, — the storms and hail, 
the ice and snow, as well as the gigantic mountains, 
which raise their threatening peaks in stern defiance 
above the clouds : in short, to keep watch and ward 
over it despite of every adverse physical influence. 
These latter are giants of the lofty alpine species, 
and hence we arrive at the origin of the elves, and 
the alp, or nightmare. In the German, the phrase 
Alpen-Druch still commemorates the myth of the 
elves of darkness. The clouds which float in the 
circumambient air above Midgard, are, as has been 
stated, the spongy productions of Ymir's brain, 
flung into space. They loom up from the border- 
land of Ymir's race, and are variable and deceitful, 
like the source from which they are derived. Their 
dark hue and tempestuous character are emblemati- 
cal of the gloomy thoughts and violent passions of 
Ymir. They borrow their brilliant tints from the 
luminaries of heaven, but their beauty is delusive ; 
and there is continual strife between them and 
these bodies, — the resplendent and benign emana- 
tions of empyrean Muspellheim. Who can doubt, 
that the rigorous and dreary winter of Scandinavia 
is admirably calculated to furnish abundant mate- 
rials for such fanciful and dismal reflections, and 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 235 

that the families of Boreus and Ymir are allied by- 
ties of a close affinity ? 



CHAPTER IV. 

ASGARD AND THE GOLDEN AGE. 

• The sons of Bor — according to Mone, the gods 
without distinction of rank or number — instead 
of reposing upon their well-earned demiurgic laurels, 
continued to display their celestial skill in the con- 
struction of an abode — a city or castle, for then- 
own use, in the centre of the universe, which they 
denominated Asgard — the abode of the gods. 
From this exalted habitation, the assiduous gods 
were in the habit of going forth to perform their 
manifold and arduous duties, both on earth and in 
heaven. With the tremulous and oscillating bridge, 
by them called Bifrost, but by man the rainbow, they 
connected the terrestrial and supernal worlds. This 
most ingenious and superb structure formed the thor- 
oughfare of the gods, while its red stripe, eradiating 
flames of fire, effectually prevented the frost and 
mountain-giants from ascending to heaven. In the 
midst of Asgard was the place known as Idavollr — 
the pleasant field, where the gods convened and 
built a palace for their private convenience, with 
twelve thrones — the largest and most magnificent 
edifice in the world, composed within and without 
of massive gold, and by mortals denominated 



236 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION 



Gladsheim ; that is, the home of gladness or bliss. 
The other palace which exercised their artistic in- 
genuity and attested their disinterested benevolence, 
was intended for the use of the fair goddesses, and 
upon it men have conferred the name of Vingolf — 
the abode of friends. Odin, as the supreme mun- 
dane divinity, had his lofty throne in that part of 
Asgard, recognized as Hlidskjalf, from which he 
surveyed and perfectly understood all that trans- 
pired within the ample limits of the universe., 
At this epoch of their history, the untiring divini- 
ties began to rear furnaces, forge hammers, tongs, 
and anvils, and to engage in the manufacture 
of various kinds of metallic and other wares. 
Gold they possessed in so prodigious a quan- 
tity, that all the celestial furniture of that pe- 
riod was made of this precious ore; and hence it 
was emphatically distinguished as the golden age. 
In the Scandinavian creed, coinciding at least in 
this respect with the existing faith of the Jew and 
the Christian, the rainbow was symbolical of the 
world's safety. When the black giants, the thun- 
derclouds, threatened to take heaven by storm, and 
the flashing, pealing electric bolts had scattered and 
hurled them to the earth, it was displayed in all 
its dazzling prismatic splendor, to the anxious or 
the admiring gaze of mortals, as the signal of vic- 
tory on the part of the Aesir over the Ymir offspring ; 
as the pledge of the supremacy of the good over the 
evil ; and as the sure promise of the perpetuity of 
the universe. Not only, we may further remark, 
did the gods descend to the earth upon this grand 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 237 

irridescent suspension bridge, in order to sojourn and 
labor among mankind, but upon it, as rays once 
darted from the fountain of light, but now reflected 
and reabsorbed, the disembodied souls of the latter 
returned to their celestial home. Among the Greeks 
and Romans it belonged to the functions of the god- 
dess Iris — the messenger of Juno, to unloose the 
souls of expiring women from the chains of the body, 
as Mercury unloosed those of the other sex. In the 
execution of this important trust, she, too, travelled 
upon the resplendent paths of Bifrost, as Ovid says : 

" On the same bow she went she soon returns." — Tookc. • 

Asgard, the Zion of the Scandinavian divinities, 
seems to be synonymous with the zodiac; the 
twelve thrones of the gods denoting that number of 
signs in the ecliptic: the solitary, towering one 
occupied by Odin, implying planetary unity. Be- 
lieving that the gods are not only all-powerful, but 
also infinitely beneficent beings, what is more natural 
and proper than that man should feel it to be a 
pleasure, as well as deem it to be his duty and his 
interest, to imitate them as far as lies in his power ? 
Accordingly, the gods assembling together in their 
mansions or temples on high, and their assemblies 
necessarily being of a solemn, religious character, 
their votaries upon the earth, patterning after the 
zodiacal churches of their heavenly patrons, built 
their houses of worship on hills and mountains, or 
in the most elevated localities among human habita- 
tions.* 

* Finn Magnusen, differing from the Eddaic account on this 
subject, predicates a Scandinavian Olympus, or a conical moun- 



238 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PROVIDENCE OF THE SCANDINAVIAN GODS. 

From the foregoing delineations of the nature and 
the functions of the Scandinavian deities, it is clear 
that they took a deep and abiding interest in the 
affairs of this world ; and that their zealous and 
ingenuous worshippers constituted the especial ob- 
jects of their parental care. To promote their 
welfare, they assiduously labored to render external 
nature propitious to their wants; and while they 
dwelled in heaven, the prayers of their confiding 
children ascended neither unheard nor unanswered 
to their celestial mansions. How different, therefore, 
are these considerate Norse divinities from a Baal, 
who stubbornly refused to be softened by the most 
vehement and prolonged entreaties of his despairing 
priests;* or the listless god of the Epicurean phi- 
losophers, who esteem the government of the uni- 
verse as beneath the dignity of his supine majesty^ 

tain arising from the centre of the earth's disc, and towering high 
into ether, as the locality of Asgard, the city of the Scandinavian 
gods ; the holy mountain of the Norse creed. 

* First Book of Kings, eighteenth chapter. From the general 
character of Baal, as we find it attested in history, the probability 
is that the limping, halting priests of this god, who, though stern 
and severe, could never justly be charged with insensibility to 
the distress or the wants of mortals, committed some flagrant mis- 
take either in the form or the spirit of their invocations, on the 
memorable occasion of their disgraceful defeat and death at 
Mount Carmel. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 239 

and man as unworthy or as regardless of a divine 
interposition in human affairs. " Perhaps," says M. 
Mallet, in his Northern Antiquities, translated by 
Percy, " no religion ever attributed so much to a 
Divine Providence as that of the northern nations. 
This doctrine served them for a key, as commodious 
as it was universal, to unlock all the phenomena of 
nature without exception. The intelligences united 
to different bodies penetrated and moved them, and 
men needed not to look any further than to them, to 
find the cause of every thing they observed in them. 
Thus entire nature, animated and always moved 
immediately by one or more intelligent causes, was 
in their system nothing more than the organ or in- 
strument of the divinity, and became a kind of book 
in which they thought they could read his will, his 
inclinations, and designs. Hence that weakness for- 
merly common to so many nations, and of which 
the traces still subsist in many places, that makes 
them regard a thousand indifferent phenomena, such 
as the quivering of leaves, the crackling and color 
of flames-, the fall of thunderbolts, the flight or 
singing of a bird, men's involuntary motions, their 
dreams and visions, the movements of the pulse, 
etc., as intimations which God gives to wise men, 
of his will. Hence came oracles, divinations, aus- 
pices, presages, and lots ; in a word, all that rub- 
bish of superstitions called at one time religion, at 
another magic, a science absurd to the eyes of rea- 
son, but suitable to the impatience and restlessness 
of our desires, and which only betrays the weakness 
of human nature, in promising to relieve it. Such, 
notwithstanding, was the principal consequence 



240 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION 



which the Teutonic nations drew from the doctrine 
of a Divine Providence.* 



* The doctrine advanced in this chapter is not only an exem- 
plification of the faith of a numerous people, in an overruling 
Providence, but also a striking confirmation of our theory of the 
origin of religious ideas. It either involves truths which are 
comprehended by all, and which therefore constitute the popular 
or exoteric part of natural religion ; or it includes a more pro- 
found development and a holier significance, recognized only by 
priests, and sages — the initiated into esoteric religion, and is thus 
the basis of the sacred mysteries and the hieroglyphic al symbols 
of abstract theological truths. In either acceptation, therefore, 
they are not truths which deserve unqualifiedly to be stigmatized 
as a rubbish of dark superstition, or a science absurd to the eyes of 
reason, unless the first modes of a feeble, infantine reasoning on 
the manifestations of God in nature, or the incipient stages of a 
religious philosophy, can with propriety be thus designated. 
There can be no rubbish, no absurdity, in the primitive, childlike 
faith or researches of mankind, unless we pervert the meaning of 
words, or subvert the principles of truth, where the materials for 
a temple of the Deity are gathered fresh from the storehouse of 
creation, though man has not yet attained to the artistic skill to 
fashion and form them into a symmetrical and stately edifice. 






IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 241 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE YGGDRASILL, THE MUNDANE SNAKE, THE WORLD- 
MOUNTAINS, AND THE PILLARS AND PYRAMIDS OF THE 
WORLD. 

PARAGRAPH I. 

The Yggdrasill. 

The ash Yggdrasill, or the mundane tree of the 
Scandinavians, is represented in the Eddas, the 
Vbluspa, the Grimnis-mal, etc., as the greatest and 
best of all trees. Under its gigantic branches, 
which wave in luxuriant profusion over the illimita- 
ble creation, and extend even above the ample limits 
of heaven, near the Urdar-fountain, is the doomstead 
of the gods, or the place where in solemn conclave 
they arbitrate the fate of the universe. Thither they 
repair every day on horseback, crossing Bifrost, 
the glory-striped Aesir-bridge. Thor alone goes on 
foot, for fear of setting Bifrost on fire with his 
thunder-car, and besides rendering boiling hot the 
Urdar-waters. This enormous tree stands over the 
renowned and sacred Urdar-fountain, and nourishes 
in perennial bloom and verdure. Three prodigious 
roots, widely separated, and embracing in their ex- 
tensive ramifications the vast empire of creation, 
firmly fix it in its place. According to one account 
of the Yggdrasill myth, Hela dwells under one of 
them; the frost and mountain-giants, under the 
other ; and mankind under the third. Another ver- 
21 



242 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

sion of the legend extends one of the massive roots 
to the habitation of Aesir, or to heaven, and to it 
assigns the Urdar-fountain exclusively. It must 
therefore reach above Asgard, as the gods daily ride 
up to it. The next is made to terminate among the 
giants already mentioned, and in the very place for- 
merly occupied by Ginriunga-gap. Under this root 
is situated Mimir's celebrated well, in which wit and 
wisdom lie hidden : it is thus named from its owner, 
who became distinguished for his sapient qualities, 
in consequence of drinking every morning of the 
water of his well from the horn Gjoll. One day 
Odin the Alfadir came and begged a draught of 
this marvellous water ; he readily obtained it, but in 
lieu of it he was obliged to leave one of his eyes as 
a pledge. The third, under which is the spring 
Hvergelmir, and which is constantly gnawed by 
the Nidhogg, strikes its innumerable fibres into 
Niflheim.* On the top of the tree thus poised in 

* The mythologies of other nations also claim and celebrate 
their mundane trees, and it is exceedingly probable that the 
Scandinavian Yggdrasill was once the thrifty scion of one of 
these ancient trunks. That of the Thibetans is called Zampuh, 
and grows on the south side of the world-mountain denominated 
Riron. Its roots extend towards the east, and its branches reach 
so far into the west that they encroach upon the north, and even 
touch the very apex of the mountain. In short, they embrace 
the whole world. Asioatha distinguishes the name of the mun- 
dane tree of the Hindoos. Its branches, according to Kanne's 
Pantheum der Aelteslen Philosophic, etc., are called the limbs or 
organs — the constituent parts of the visible or sensual world ; 
and its leaves are denotive of the Ycdas, which again are the 
symbols of the universe in its intellectual character. Of the 
Aswatha and the Persian Gogard we shall presently speak more 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 243 

the centre of the universe, is perched an eagle, 
famed no less than Mimir himself, for its superior 



at large. What, it is natural to ask, gave rise to these myths of 
the world-trees ? Are they the playful productions of the fertile 
fancies of the poets ? or have they a basis in reality ? Who is 
able to penetrate through the grey mist of ages, and, laying bare 
the root of the first Yggdrasill, say, Here is the beginning of the 
world-tree myths ? The following curious facts in natural history, 
taken from Moore's Rural New Yorker, for January and February 
of the current year, favor the idea of existent realities as their 
prototypes. They relate to the vegetable kingdom, and comprise 
two of the most remarkable trees known to phytonic science. 
The Rain-tree first demands our attention. " The island of Fierro 
is one of the most considerable of the Canaries, and I conceive 
that name to be given it upon this account, that its soil not af- 
fording so much as a drop of fresh water, seems to be of iron ; 
and indeed, there is in this island, neither river nor rivulet, nor 
well nor spring, save that only towards the seaside there are some 
wells ; but they lie at such a distance from the city, that the inhab- 
itants can make no more use of them. But the great Preserver 
and Sustainer of all, remedies this inconvenience by a way so ex- 
traordinary, that man will be forced to sit down and acknowledge 
that he gives in this an undeniable demonstration of his goodness 
and infinite providence. For, in the midst, there is a tree which 
is the only one of the kind, inasmuch as it hath no resemblance 
to those mentioned by us in this relation, nor to any other known 
to us in Europe. The leaves of it are long and narrow, and 
continue in a constant verdure, winter and summer; and its 
branches are covered with a cloud which is never dispelled, but 
resolved into a moisture, causes to fall from its leaves a very clear 
water, and that in such abundance that the cisterns, which are 
placed at the foot of the tree to receive it, are never empty, but 
contain enough to supply both man and beast." Who does not 
perceive a striking resemblance between the copious aqueous de- 
positions of the Rain-tree, and the Urdar-fountain of the Yggdra- 
sill? — The marvellous Kounboum next passes in review before 
us, and is thus described: "M. Hue, in his 'Travels in Tartary 



244 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

sapience. Between its lustrous eyes, sits the hawk 
Vedurfdlnir. The squirrel Ratolsk — insolent little 
beast! runs up and down the immortal ash, and 
seeks to cause strife between the bird of heaven and 
Nidhogg, the huge mundane snake, and the envious 
gnawer at the Yggdrasill-root ; with which, it is as- 
serted, so multitudinous a host of the ophidian race 
is associated, that no tongue can recount it. Four 
harts bound across the spreading branches of this 
noble tree, browsing on its buds and leaves. Near 
the Urdar-fountain, is located a very beautiful 
dwelling, inhabited by three maidens, named Urd, 
Verdandi, and Skuld — the present, the past, and 
the future : they fix the term of human life, and are 



and Thibet,' found many wonders ; among them, a singular tree 
called Kounboum, or Tree of Ten Thousand Images, growing 
not far from one of the principal Buddhist temples in the latter 
country. The marvel of it is, that there are upon each of these 
leaves well-formed Thibetan characters, all of a green color, 
some darker, some lighter than the leaf itself. The characters 
are portions of the leaf itself, and are also found upon the bark of 
the trunk and branches. In removing a part of the old bark, the 
indistinct outlines of characters were seen on the new bark under 
it, but different from those removed. The tree is of great age 
and size, and the Lamas informed M. Hue that it was the only 
one of the kind in existence, and that all efforts to propagate it 
by seeds and cuttings had failed. Our traveller made a most 
minute examination, and became convinced that there was no 
trickery in the case." — This is the Thibetan Tree of Knowledge. 
Koun is derived from the Hindoo karma, the eye ; hence kiena, 
knowledge — scientia, in Latin, and kenner, in German. I will 
only add, that, according to Blackwell, the May-pole and the 
German Christbaim, have a pagan origin, the type of both being 
the ash Yggdrasill, 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 245 

called Norns, Parcae or fates.* Every day they draw 
water from the Urdar-fountain, and with it and the 
clay which lies around it, sprinkle the ash, that its 
branches may not rot and wither away. The water 
of this fountain is so exceedingly pure and holy, 
that any thing which is immersed in it, becomes as 
white as the membraneous tissue which lines the 
inside of an egg-shell. The exhalations of the ash 
thus sprinkled, condense and fall to the earth, when 
men call them honey-dew, and it is the food of 
bees. Two snow-white swans are nourished from 
the Urdar-waters, and they claim the parentage of 
all birds bearing their name. This intricate and. 
ingenious arborial structure, together with its various 
and interesting appurtenances, merits the attempts 
at least of a critical and careful elucidation, the 
result of which is accordingly here laid before the 
reader. As Ymir represents the inert material 
world, so the Yggdrasill is doubtless to be regarded 
as the symbol of organic existence, in all its diver- 



* There are many Norns beside the three enumerated in the 
text. Some are said to belong to the Aesir, and others, to the 
races of the elves and the dwarfs. Those are of a heavenly, these, 
of an earthly origin. Good Norns dispense good, evil Norns, evil 
destinies. The elves are the males, and the Valkyr-jor — choosers 
of the slain, created by Odin after his draught from Miniir's well 
had endowed him with the mysteries of magic, — the females of 
the same sprightly family of genii. The elves of the air are the 
elves of light ; those of the water — die Nix en : naiads, the elves 
of darkness, or the Davkalfar. As to the dwarfs, they were bred 
in Ymir's body, and were at first only maggots, but by the will of 
the gods, they at last assumed the form and understanding of 
man : they always dwell in rocks and caverns. 

21* 



246 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

sified phases of development. Its three roots can 
mean nothing but the physical, the intellectual, and 
the moral elements of being. The basis of man's as 
well as the world's creation, being water, the swan 
typifies the infant soul or being still swimming upon 
the water ; and its white plumage denotes the inno- 
cence* and purity of new-born man. White, too, 
is typical of the wintry Niflheim — the cosmical 
womb containing the prima materia of Ginnunga- 
gap. The Hindoo Brahma — the creator of the 
world, is represented as sitting upon a swimming 
swan, thus symbolizing the origin of creation.* The 
transforming virtue of the Urdar-water, converting 
every thing with which it comes in contact into the 
purest white, implies the good and the beautiful in 
mundane existence. The matured mind is repre- 
sented by the eagle, while the hawk typifies internal 
sensation. In the East, the north is called the top or 
zenith, and hence by its position on the top of the 
ash — the north pole of the world, the eagle, consid- 
ered in its macrocosmic import, denotes, no doubt, 
the north. Njord resides in Noatun — the night or 
the north, and one of his symbols is the feathery 
integument of the eagle.f The serpent Nidhbgg is 
the emblem of night in its primitive import: it 



* According to an Egyptian myth, the floating isle of Chemmis, 
called into existence by Apollo, sprang genetically from the egg of 
the mundane swan. 

f The eagle inhabits the north, and clothed in its plumage, the 
god Njord sometimes indulges in works of volitation, creating a 
wind which is called the eagle-wind — aquilo, or the north-wind ; 
and in the language of the Greenlanders, the eagle is denomi- 
nated the bird of night: literally the night-like bird. — Kanne. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 247 

gnaws at the root of the ash in Hvergelmir. Night 
is Nichts — nothing ; that is, a negation, yet an evil 
striving to annihilate its antithesis. In its ethical 
import, Nidhogg, composed of Nid, which is synony- 
mous with the German Neid or envy, and hoggr, to 
hew or gnaw, signifying the envious gnawer, in- 
volves the idea of all moral evil, typified as the 
destroyer of the root of the tree of life. In their 
moral significance, the harts may be considered as 
expressive of the restless and troubled passions of 
the mind feeding upon the green leaves — the 
healthy thoughts of the soul; in their mundane 
relation, as the corroding tooth of time. The 
squirrel, running between the king of birds and the 
hideous world-snake, illustrates the alternate influ- 
ence which the animal and the intellectual faculties 
exercise over each other. In its more extensive 
import, it may be viewed as expressive of an equa- 
tion of good and evil in the universe. As the gene- 
sis of existence is in water, so wisdom originates by 
imbibition, and even Odin obtains the precious gift 
in this way ; but he is obliged to pledge one of his 
eyes for a draught from Mimir's well — a singular 
exchange which, according to some interpreters of 
mythic lore, means that Odin is the sun whose 
image is reflected in the water. Cosmically applied, 
the pledge of the god may be understood as symbol- 
ical of his creative power — the reflection of his 
divine attributes, and its recognition as a reality dis- 
tinct from himself — the world ; yet a reality evolved 
or born out of him, and existing only through him.* 

* Odin drinks Mimir's water from the fulgid horn Gjoll ; that is, 



248 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

In oriental myths, the sun and moon are called the 
two eyes of the world. The former, as the generative 
primeval light — the eye in the water ; the latter, as 
the ray-embraced, impregnated eye, reflecting the 
solar light. To understand this theory clearly, it is 
necessary to bear in mind, that in the ancient sys- 
tems of cosmogony, the sun represents all the ac- 
tive or more powerful forces in nature, especially 
light and heat, and the moon, all the passive or 
more feeble principles and elementary combinations 
in the universe, especially night and cold, the earth 
and the water. Proserpine is not only Helena or the 
moon, but also Demeter, the earth, and by descending 
still lower in her evolutions, she figures as the som- 
bre queen of hell, or of Hades. In her lunarian ca- 
pacity, she is moreover the mother of night and 
thaw. In short, the sun is the south pole, the Mus- 
pellheim, and the moon the north pole, the nebulous, 
dark, cold Niflheim of the world. When Narcissus 
saw his image reflected in a fountain, it is said he 
became enamoured with it, and was changed into the 
flower which bears his name; that is, he, the pure 
celestial spirit, derived, according to- the doctrine 
of the Platonic philosophers, from the empyrean 
spheres, descended to the earth, or became incar- 
nated mind, mixed with matter ; which is the same 



intelligence united to sound, becomes the creative word : lie leaves 
an eye. As long as both his eyes were closed, he had both ; when 
they were opened, and he looked into the fountain of life — the 
prolific and regenerative source from which he again revived 
dead nature, he parted with creative power : the world lost an 
eye, a portion of divine energy. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 249 

as to say that the Supreme Mind revealed himself 
as an individual intelligence, and became an evolu- 
tionary part of creation. As to the gods sitting 
daily in judgment under the Yggdrasill, it can 
scarcely mean any thing else but that they exercise 
a vigilant and rigorous providence over the world, 
or execute the laws upon which are based the integ- 
rity and perpetuity of the universe. The bees and 
the honey-dew yet remain to be considered. With 
the bee, whose food is ordinarily the nectar of 
flowers, the idea of a primeval, pure, and innocent 
diet, such as may be supposed to have distinguished 
the patriarchal state of the world, is connected. On 
honey, the fertile fancy of the heathens presumed 
the progenitors of the human race to have subsisted, 
while they continued in a paradisian state of sinless 
purity ; were animated by holy and heavenly aspira- 
tions; and practised the loftiest yet the most child- 
like devotion : the young bee in its larva-innocence, 
likewise feeds upon ambrosia, or the pollen of 
flowers. The nymph Melissa has the honor to have 
introduced this luscious production into the world ; 
and some of the most ancient priestesses, the Mi- 
lissas, bearing the same name as the bees, deserve 
the praise of having first called the attention of the 
nations to the cultivation of grain, the first, and, it 
was believed, also the best kind of agrarian food for 
man. Plain, wholesome diet ; a simple, genial devo- 
tion; and a stainless moral purity, are therefore the 
dominant ideas which are symbolized by this mel- 
liferous insect, distinguished at once for its cleanly 
and industrious habits, its economical utility, and 
its strict and admirable system of social polity. 



250 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Though often sallying forth from its hive to revel in 
the breeze, and feast upon the gifts of Flora, the 
bee loves its home, and fails not to return to it ; and 
for this reason, the ancients considered it to be a. fit 
emblem of the soul, which, descending to the earth 
from the mansions of the gods, at the period of 
childbirth, keeps itself prepared by the observance 
of a pious and holy life, soon to return to a higher 
sphere of being — its pristine abode. In this higher 
relation, the bee is hieroglyphically associated with 
Proserpine the pure : the conductress of the souls 
into and out of the body. It was also the acknowl- 
edged type of the nourishing and fostering maternal 
goddesses — the Ephesian Artemis, or Diana, and 
Ceres, and wont to figure as one of their chief hiero- 
glyphical insignia. The honey-dew, the food of the 
busy Yggdrasill-bees, falls in the night under a re- 
duced temperature, when the atmosphere is charged 
with humidity, and, as far as the passive principle 
of creation is concerned, it therefore typifies the 
creation of the world out of water, at that nascent 
period of time when gelid vapors and thick darkness 
lay brooding over the fluid mass. The bees feeding 
upon it, is denotive of the active principle of crea- 
tion — the luminous, torrid rays streaming forth 
from the empyrean Muspellheim, which, impinging 
upon the waters in Ginnunga-gap, begat the primal 
fruit and incipient forms of the infant world. 
Finally, of honey is prepared the food of the gods, 
and as honey, in the Scandinavian myth, is derived 
from the copious dew of the mundane ash ; and 
again, as the Yggdrasill-dew is symbolical of the 
passive, cosmic principle, or the prima materia of the 



ET ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 251 

world, the eating of the honey on the part of the 
gods, implies that they are the active powers in na- 
ture — the celestial architects and controllers of the 
universe. 

PAEAGEAPH II. 

The Yggdrasilt and Nidhogg illustrated from the doctrines of the 
Grecian and Oriental mythologies of the mundane tree, the mun- 
dane snake, together icith an investigation of the world-mountains, 
and the pillars and pyramids of the world. 

According to the Hindoo mythology, the universe 
is portrayed under the form of a tree, called Asiua- 
tha, or Asvatha, the position of which is reversed, the 
branches extending downwards and the root up- 
wards; the latter assuming this direction, because in 
the dark region of the north pole is the root or origin 
of all creation ; and the former that, because they 
typify all the numerous objects of sense in the ex- 
ternal world — the members and organs of the 
cosmical body. In other words, the root symbolizes 
the genesis of the world in God, while the branches 
are denotive of the creative energy of the Deity 
realized in the production of the universe. This 
energy begins its revelation above in a point, and 
ends below in multitudinous ramifications. Man, 
too, as a constituent part of creation, has his origin 
in a tree, called, in the cosmogonic myth of the Per- 
sians, the Gogard, or tree of life, inasmuch as the 
first pair of our race, Meshia and Meshiane, while 
yet inclosed in it, were still in God and in a state 
of innocence ; but Riva or Ribas — separation or 
strife, alluding to man's hypostatical or distinct 



252 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

individual existence : any thing out of God is of 
course a separation, and created intelligences, such 
as the original man and woman, are not in unity 
but in antagonism with God. It is further to 
be observed, that the myth under consideration 
supposes the prototypes of our race while inclosed 
in the microcosmic tree, to have been but one indi- 
vidual, and to have existed in an androgynal state.* 
This dogma is to be understood thus : man began 
his existence as the Divine intelligence ; for there is 
but one Spirit, however many spiritual gifts there 
may be, and God knowing or recognizing himself in 
contemplating the woman — material existence in 
its unformed state ; or, which is the same thing, the 
passive principles and elements of creation, is God- 
man or male humanity, and as long -as this recogni- 
tion or sciens of himself does not become a hypos- 
tasis, or an individual distinct from himself, but 
continues to remain in him, the man and woman 
are in a state of androgynal union. As soon, how- 
ever, as it assumes form and being out of God, 
there is a male and female humanity in a separate 
state of individuality : the division line between the 



* Upon the authority of the Bundehesh, Kanne states that this 
tree resembled two human bodies placed in juxtaposition, one 
introducing a hand into the ear of the other, while both were so 
intimately united that they seemed to constitute but one body, 
etc. It is evident that the hand here is intended as the symbol 
of generation. Numerous instances might be quoted in proof of 
this fact, one, however, will suffice on this occasion. A Nepaulese 
branch of the huge Hindoo mythological tree, relates that the will 
of God, appearing in the form of a woman, created Brahma, 
Vichnu, and Siva, by simply striking her hands together ! 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 253 

Creator and the creature stands out in bold relief. 
When, as it is related in the mythic records of the 
Greeks, Bacchus saw his linage, nature was realized : 
the world in the god became the world out of the 
god! In order to produce the universe, Brahma, 
the Hindoo creator of the world, assumed the her- 
maphrodite form; that is, he revealed himself at 
once in the unity of the active and passive attri- 
butes of creation. According to the Persians, the 
root of the tree of life was gnawed, not by a noxious 
serpent, but by a venomous toad ; but the cosmogony 
of the philosopher Pherecydes informs us again that 
a snake was lodged among the branches o£ the oak, 
deemed sacred as the Gogard, or tree of life, among 
the Hellenic people. In the ancient mythologies of 
the East, the snake appears at once as a good and 
an evil being — as agathodaimon and kakothodaimon. 
In the beginning — thus proceeds the cosmogonic 
myth — were water and the prolific slime ilus, ide, 
from which crept forth the mundane snake. This 
protogonos-being was furnished with the heads of a 
ram, a bull — taurus, and a lion ; had wings at the 
sides ; and bore the physiognomy of the god Phanes 
— the apparent or revealed. The heads of the three 
quadrupeds, as distinctive traits of this snake, refer 
to the zodiac, while the snake itself is the symbol 
of Cneph, the hidden deity, revealed in time within 
the great, living ring of the snake, and hence distin- 
guished as Phanes. The mundane snake unrolls 
itself as the mundane year; as the year revolving 
within the zodiacal signs of Aries, Taurus, Leo, etc. 
Time thus unfolding itself, is measured in the 
ecliptic as days, years, eras, etc. Besides, time has 
22 



254 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

wings, and hence the world-snake is represented 
winged. The central face of the snake, reflecting 
the image of the Deity, is emblematical of the fact 
that God is the centre of creation and of providence. 
The head of the bull, as a component part of the 
world-snake, is expressive of profound significance. 
In primeval time, the year commenced when the 
vernal equinox was in Taurus, and hence the bull, 
or the ox in its generic acceptation, is represented as 
rising up out of the abyss — the Ginnunga-gap of 
creation : he stands at the roseate dawn of time, 
and years and months are called oxen — bous, boes, 
or boves* Hence at Memphis, in the area of 
the temple, devoted to Phthas the creator, the bull 
appears as the type of the Eternal, and as such he 
is the consecrated medium of Divine worship. The 
snake, encircling the urn, or water-vase, agreeably to 
the Egyptian mythology, is Cneph, the good spirit, 
hovering over the waters. As agathodaimon, the 
snake is also the emblem of health and the healing 



* According to the doctrine of the early Persian or Iranite 
Magi, the first living being was the ox Abvdad, which was slain 
by Ahriman ; but Ormuzd formed from its body the different 
species of beasts, birds, and fishes, trees, plants, etc. When the 
ox expired, a being called Kajoniorz sprang from its right leg. 
Kajomorz was killed by the Devs, but after the elementary parti- 
cles that entered into the composition of his body had been puri- 
fied in the light of the sun during forty years, they became the 
germ of the Ribas tree, out of which Ormuzd made the first man 
and woman, Meshia and Meshianc, infusing into them the breath 
of life and spirituality. He thus completed the work of creation 
in six periods, holding at the end of each the festival Gahanbar. 
— Blackwell. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 255 

art, and of immortality or a life to come * On the 
contrary, the snake considered as the symbol or per- 
sonification of Ahriman, Typhon, etc., is the evil 
snake — the dragon. In the great temple of Edfu, 
supposed by Jomard and his fellow savans to have 
been built during the period of time, when the sum- 
mer solstice took place in the sign of Leo, appears a 
lion with the head of a hawk — the symbol of the 
culminating power of the sun, which has seized in 
its claws a coiled snake, the emblem of the noxious 
influences which succeed the recession of the king 1 
of day from the northern hemisphere. The snake, 
viewed in its malignant attributes, is the type of 
moral and physical evil generally, and as such, its 
effect upon the world is analogous to that of Ty- 
phonism, revealing itself in the subtile poison which 



* The good snake encircles the image of the sanital goddess 
Minerva, and is the symbol both of the earth and of the goddess, 
in as far as she controls the spirit of mother-earth, and purifies and 
ameliorates it agrarianly and medicinally. In Egypt, the cup of 
health, dispensed by Serapis, Osiris, and Isis, was entwined by 
serpents: thus ornamented, it was probably one of the oldest 
hieroglyphical symbols of these divinities. In the country of the 
Pharaohs and of the Pyramids, snakes were kept in the temples ; 
fed upon honey cakes ; and venerated as the living representa- 
tives of the Hygienic gods. Sickler is of opinion that a healing 
virtue was attributed to snakes, in consequence of these reptiles 
affecting the localities of thermo-medicinal springs. Found in 
proximity to such waters, they must, he further presumes, have 
appeared in the eyes of primitive man as the warders of the Hy- 
gienic fountains, and the unerring guides to health and longevity. 
Discoveries such as these, naturally led to the choice of the 
snake as an appropriate symbol of health ; of rejuvenated life ; 
and of the iEsculapian profession. 



256 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

it infuses into the vital juices of the vast and majes- 
tic mundane tree. According to mythic account, 
Erisichthon, the son of Triops the Thessalian, was 
doomed to suffer a most severe and protracted pun- 
ishment through the instrumentality of a snake. 

The following facts will acquaint us with the de- 
tails of this tragic affair. Our hero is a mythic per- 
sonage, of allegorical import, and signifies the sun in 
its greatest semiannual potency and splendor, when 
its scorching rays burn and consume the produc- 
tions of the vegetable kingdom: a fact which is 
metaphorically expressed by stating that Erisich- 
thon derided Ceres — the earth, and cut down her 
sacred grove. This solar phthisis is also personified 
under the appellation of Aethon — the consuming: 
an epithet applied with much force to Erisichthon 
or the sun at this season of the year, especially in a 
country like Egypt. Such, we are told, was the 
consuming, destroying propensity of the fiery sun- 
god, that if the mundane snake had not seasonably 
interfered, and infolded him within its constrictive 
coils, thus restraining him, he would have committed 
a suicidal self-destruction. The culprit Erisichthon, 
thus entwined by the puissant snake, which acted in 
this instance as the executioner of the vengeance of 
Ceres, is condemned by the offended goddess to take 
up his abode among the constellations, and there 
to exhibit himself before the gaze of the world as 
the Ophiuchus or snake-holder, and as a dread 
beacon of warning to all future ages, of the dire 
consequences of insulting her person or infringing 
her rights. When it is asserted that Erisichthon 
would have devoured himself in case the snake had 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 257 

not interposed its punitive yet saving agency, the 
meaning is, that the sun would eventually have 
burned up every thing upon the earth, and thus 
annihilated its own effective power.* Finally, after 
the autumnal equinox, this fiercely glowing god, or 
the summer sun, approaches gradually towards the 
winter solstice; it loses its accustomed influence 
more and more ; night encroaches upon day ; wet 
succeeds drought; and stern, tempestuous winter 
sways his ominous sceptre over the ruins of a once 
powerful and splendid empire. These physical 
changes in the laws and phenomena of the plane- 
tary system, whose centre is the sun, are personated 
by the autumnal snake ; the evil snake ; the snake 
of the curse, constricting and subduing Erisichthon. 
It may still be asked, How can this snake be defined 
as evil, when it has evidently accomplished a good ? 
To understand this apparent contradiction, it should 
be borne in mind that good in its extreme is evil, 
and that therefore the ophidian vanquisher of Eri- 
sichthon is a curse in view of the long absence of 
the light and heat of summer daring the winter 
season. It may not be inappropriate to remark, 
that instead of an entire grove, some authors make 
mention only of a famous poplar or oak, the daring 
destruction of which marked the extent of Erisich- 
thon's impious outrage against Ceres ; and it is over 



*In performing this act of justice in behalf of Ceres, the 
snake is the good snake, but in sparing the life of Erisichthon, it 
is at once the good and the evil snake : the evil snake as it re- 
gards the preservation of the evil-doer; the good snake, as it 
respects the preservation of the world in its solar integrity. 
22* 



258 THE HEATHEN BELIGION 

the ample dimension of the violated, thrice sacred 
oak of the goddess, that Ovid thus pours out his 
unrestrained, prolific effusions: — 

" An ancient oak in the dark centre stood, 
The covert's glory, and itself a wood : 
Garlands embraced its shaft, and from the boughs 
Hung tablets, monuments of prosperous vows. 
In the cool dusk its unpierced verdure spread, 
The dryads oft their hallowed dances led ; 
And oft, when round their guaging arms they cast, 
Full fifteen ells it measured in the waist : 
Its height all under-standards did surpass, 
As they aspired above the humbler grass. 
These motives, which would gentler minds restrain, 
Could not make Triope's bold son abstain ; 
He sternly charged his slaves with strict decree 
To fell with gashing steel the sacred tree. 
But while they, lingering, his commands delayed, 
He snatched an axe, and thus blaspheming said : 
* Was this no oak, nor Ceres' favorite care, 
But Ceres' self, this arm, unawed, should dare 
Its leafy honors in the dust to spread, 
And level with the earth its airy head.' 
He spoke, and as he poised a slanting stroke, 
Sighs heaved, and tremblings shook the frighted oak : 
Its leaves looked sickly, pale its acorns grew, 
And its long branches sweat a chilly dew. 
But when his impious hand a wound bestowed, 
Blood from the mangled bark in currents flowed. 
When a devoted bull of mighty size, 
A sinning nation's grand atonement, dies, 
With such plenty from the spouting veins, 
A crimson stream the turfy altars stains. 
The wonder all amazed ; yet one more bold, 
The fact dissuading, strove his axe to hold. 
But the Thessalian, obstinately bent, 
Too proud to change, too hardened to repent, 






IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 259 

On his kind monitor, his eyes, which burned 
With rage, and with his eyes his weapon turned : 

* Take the reward,' says he, ' of pious dread : ' 
Then with a blow lopped off his parted head. 

No longer checked, the wretch his crime pursued, 
Doubled his strokes, and sacrilege renew'd ; 
When from the groaning trunk a voice was heard : 

* A dryad I, by Ceres' love preferr'd, 
Within the circle of this clasping rind 
Coeval grew, and now in ruin join'd : 

But instant vengeance shall thy sin pursue, 
And death is cheered with this prophetic view.' " 

As has been already shown, a deed so flagitious 
called for a speedy and condign punishment, and 
Ceres, agreeably to the fancy of the metamorphosiz- 
ing poet, addressing a nymph, the mountain's ranger, 
revealed her plan, and in words like these charged 
her with her high commands : — ■ 

" Where frozen Scythia's utmost bound is placed, 
A desert lies, a melancholy waste : 
In yellow crops there Nature never smiled, 
No fruitful tree to shade the barren wild. 
There sluggish cold its icy station makes, 
There paleness frights, and anguish trembling shakes. 
Of pining Famine this the fated seat, 
To whom my orders in these words repeat : 
Bid her this miscreant with her sharpest pains 
Chastise, and sheathe herself into his veins. 
The fiend obeyed the goddess's command, 
(Though their effects in opposition stand,) 
She cut her way, supported by the wind, 
And reached the mansion by the nymph assigned. 
'T was night, when, entering Erisichthon's room, 
Dissolved in sleep, and thoughtless of his doom, 
She clasped his limbs, by impious labor tired, 
With battish wings, but her whole self inspired ; 



260 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Breathed on his throat and chest a tainting blast, 

And in his veins infused an endless fast. 

The task despatched, away the fury flies 

From plenteous regions, and from ripening skies ; 

To her old barren north she wings her speed, 

And cottages distressed with pinching need. 

Still slumbers Erisichthon's senses drown, 

And soothe his fancy with their softest down. 

He dreams of viands delicate to eat, 

And revels on imaginary meat. 

Chews with his working mouth, but chews in vain, 

And tires his grinding teeth with fruitless pain ; 

Deludes his throat with visionary fare, 

Feasts on the wind, and banquets on the air. 

The morning came, the night and slumbers passed, 

But still the furious pangs of hunger last ; 

The cank'rous rage still gnaws with griping pains, 

Stings in his throat, and in his bowels reigns. 

Straight he requires, impatient in demand, 

Provision from the air, the seas, the land. 

But though the land, air, seas, provisions grant, 

Starves at full tables, and complains of want. 

What to a people might in dole be paid, 

Or victual cities for a long blockade, 

Could not one wolfish appetite assuage ; 

For glutting nourishment increased its rage. 

As rivers poured from every distant shore 

The sea insatiate drinks, and thirsts for more, 

Or as the fire, which all materials burns, 

And wasted forests into ashes turns, 

Grows more voracious as the more it preys, 

Recruits dilate the flame, and spread the blaze, 

So impious Erisichthon's hunger raves, 

Receives refreshments, and refreshments craves. 

Food raises a desire for food, and meat 

Is but a new provocative to eat. 

He grows more empty, as the more supplied, 

And endless cramming but extends tho void." 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 261 

The world-mountains, Olympus, Meru, and Bordj, 
play a conspicuous part in ancient mythology, and 
have a significance which is analogous to that of 
the Yggdrasill, the Aswatha, the Gogard, etc., 
already described. Mount Olympus is located in 
the north-eastern limits of the ancient Thessaly, 
near the confines of Macedonia, now known as 
Roumelia, and which constitutes a part of the Otto- 
man empire in Europe. It is about twenty miles 
north of Larissa, and is separated from Mount Ossa 
by the famous vale of Tempe, through which the 
river Peneus, recognized in modern geography under 
the name of Salambria, discharges its limpid waters 
into the Aegean. Mount Olympus was emphati- 
cally the holy mountain of Greece, and distinguished 
preeminently as the choice abode of the gods. One 
of its significations is heaven, and it was the ac- 
knowledged heaven-mountain of the sprightly Hel- 
lenic race. Its other import is heaven and earth, or 
heavenly and earthly ; a meaning which must neces- 
sarily be involved in a heaven-mountain, as it is the 
cosmic pole of the terrestrial and the supernal 
world. Jupiter held his august court upon its 
summit, and all the principal superhadean divinities 
of Greece were unanimous in selecting it as the 
most eligible site for their diurnal residence : in the 
night they lodged in their starry domes. The meet- 
ing of these magnificent beings upon their favorite 
mountain in, the morning, and their departure from 
it in the evening, are thus vividly portrayed by one 
poet, and elegantly interpreted by another : — 

M Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light 
The gods had summoned to the Olympian height : 



262 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

Jove, first ascending from the watery bowers, 

Leads the long order of ethereal powers, 

When, like the morning-mist in early day, 

Rose from the flood the daughter of the sea ; 

And to the seats divine her flight address'd. 

There, far apart, and high above the rest, 

The thunderer sat ; where old Olympus shrouds 

His hundred heads in heaven, and props the clouds. — 

Meantime the radiant sun, to mortal sight 

Descending swift, rolled down the rapid light. 

Then to their starry domes the gods depart, 

The shining monuments of Vulcan's art : 

Jove on his couch reclined his awful head, 

And Juno slumbered on the golden bed." 

Mount Olympus is said to be about a mile and a 
half in perpendicular height. Horner describes it as 
towering far above the clouds, and crowned with 
fleecy snow ; while succeeding poets have not hesi- 
tated to clothe its summit in the soft and balmy 
attributes of perpetual spring. There were a num- 
ber of other Olympic mountains both ih Europe 
and in Asia, which were of course all heaven-moun- 
tains and mountains of the gods on a smaller scale 
and with humbler pretensions. A halo of glory 
shed its preternatural lustre over these celestial 
abodes, and stamped the impress of divinity upon 
every thing around them. By the exercise of a 
simple faith and an exuberant imagination, the 
ancients raised them even to the rank and dignity 
of gods ; and Strabo distinctly states that Mount 
Amanus was worshipped with divine honors among 
the Persians. The lofty peaks of these mountains, 
wrapped in snow; shrouded in mist and clouds; or 
steeped in the mellow, cerulean tints of heaven, 
were presumed to conceal the sublime mysteries of 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 263 

the generation and birth of the gods; and while, 
according to the creed of the Persians, the circum- 
ambient ether of empyrean space was the translucid 
sphere of Ormuzd's divine activity, the Greeks in- 
dulged in the belief that the whole atmospheric 
circumference of the glittering celestial vault, was 
Zeus or Jupiter, and therefore in the popular mani- 
festation of their devotion, they worshipped it not 
only as a god, but as the chief of the mundane divin- 
ities. 

The broad basis of the religious creed of the Hin- 
doos, was the holy mountain Mem or Mandar, the 
old or mythic name of the Himmaleh mountains, 
especially the most elevated parts of them called the 
Dhawalgeri. It formed the solid foundation of their 
wide spreading and intricate religious system, and 
they unanimously regarded it as the prolific source 
of their origin, as well as the most sacred habitation 
of the gods.* It was their firm conviction that a 
portion of the essential attributes of the true God- 

* The ample base of Meru was supposed to rest upon the 
abyss of the world-fountain ; and as it is the beneficent source or 
generator of innumerable brooks and torrents, whose myriad 
streams form the mighty Ganges and the dark-blue Indus, as 
well as many other rivers of inferior fame, a salubrious climate, a 
fertile soil, and an enchanting landscape, were, in a great measure, 
justly attributed to the fluviatile advantages which this sacred 
mountain conferred upon India. It will therefore be readily ad- 
mitted that it was perfectly natural for its primitive inhabitants — 
the simple, unsophisticated children of nature, to deem it holy, 
and to venerate it as the mysterious laboratory of nature. In 
this sanctum sanctorum and cradle of the world, they excavated 
temples — little Merus, and inscribed the inside with the hiero- 
glyphical symbols of their faith and of their hopes. 



264 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

head lay concealed in the bowels of this Oriental 
Alp, and that its profound chasms attested his pres- 
ence and proclaimed his energy. This idea, appar- 
ently so extravagant, will cease to excite our sur- 
prise, if we steadily bear in mind that this mountain 
is the Hindoo world-mountain; ay, the infinite 
mundane pillar, or Siva-pillar, in which the divinity 
of Siva was cosmogonically embodied, and from 
which the god went forth in the display of his omni- 
presence and power : as the sun, he rose and set on 
Meru, and during his reign above the horizon, he 
was the south pole ; while in his subterranean orbit, 
he represented or expressed the north pole of the 
Mem-world.* Within the profound recesses of this 
mysterious and wonderful mountain, the gods pre- 
pared the life-drink, the prima materia or atomic 
germs of organic life. Pervaded and animated by 
an invisible, divine power, it was here that the em- 
bryo-world originated, which, when it was fully 
developed, revealed God in space as the nature of 



*It appears from Kanne, that the Meru, Mandar, and Ka- 
laya, are interchangeable terms, and that they designate the same 
mountain. Upon this world-mountain, familiarly known as Meru, 
a temple is erected, and the Hindoos are accustomed to assemble 
at Tirounamaly, and to celebrate a grand festival in honor of the 
holy fane. At this place, and upon the day, Paor-Nomi, this 
extraordinary mountain was produced to personate Siva when 
he descended at that place in a pillar ofjire, to settle a dispute 
among the gods upon the subject of precedence. To commem- 
orate this event, the celestial pacificator converted his pillar of 
fire — the mundane embodiment of his divinity, into this moun- 
tain, that his pious votaries might recognize and worship him 
under this image — the symbol of his divine presence and provi- 
dence. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 265 

things. Meru bears the appellation of Himmaleh, 
or snow mountain, on account of its snow-capt 
summit, which, in a macrocosmic sense, is its north 
pole communicating hieroglyphically with the invisi- 
ble world, while the centre of its basis is its south 
pole, both thus forming the nexus between the ma- 
terial and the spiritual universe. It has also a north 
and south phasis ; the former is dark and cold, the 
latter luminous and warm. That is the true Him- 
maleh, while this is known as Calais, a term which 
is derived from Kelees, which denotes hot, or burn- 
ing. Hence these two opposite points of Meru 
constitute its two little or microcosmic poles. The 
mountain designated the Bordj, with the article Al- 
bordj, is the mythic world-mountain of the ancient 
Persians. Its name, according to Kanne, who, how- 
ever, ignores the prefix Al as its article, signifies the 
taurus-mountain, and is etymologically composed of 
Alb, denoting an ox, in its generic acceptation, and 
Ordi, meaning the earth, — an appellation which, if 
founded in a true etymon, refers, no doubt, to the 
commencement of astronomical time in the sign of 
Taurus; a fact which it was easy for the human 
mind to apply by a metastasial figure, to the origin 
of the world, especially as all kosmos — order and 
beauty of creation, could but exist synchronically 
with the periodical revolutions of the planetary 
spheres. From this mountain, all .mundane exist- 
ence took its rise, and the stars leapt into their 
orbicular paths. Cosmically considered, it is the 
symbol of creation and its genetic connection with 
the Infinite, Supreme Essence, Zeruane Akerene; a 
23 



266 THE HEATHEN BELIGION 

name the literal meaning of which is, the Illimitable 
or Uncreated Time. The Bordj is unhesitatingly 
affirmed to be the' navel of the world, and the 
mountain of mountains. It towers far above the 
most elevated parts of the earth, and fans its lofty- 
brow in the subtile ether of heaven. From it have 
descended prophets and lawgivers, who imparted to 
mankind the rays of a purer light, and opened to 
them the vista of a brighter hope. Suffice it to 
say, it was the prolific seed-bed and potent centre 
of the religious dogmas and liturgic rites of the 
ancient Persians. — The pyramids of Egypt, the 
most lofty and stupendous monuments of ancient 
architecture, are the artistic world-mountains and 
world-trees of the people of the Nile. The symbol- 
ical representation of the world in the Egyptian 
temples, as described by Creuzer and the French 
savans, fully corroborates this fact. Placed within 
one of those sacred structures — that of Dendara, 
for example, containing the zodiacal sphere within 
its cupola, let us call to mind the normal or prime- 
val era of the celestial signs, at the solemn and de- 
cisive moment of the commencement of the great 
year, in the holy night of the first summer solstice 
succeeding the termination of a tempic cycle of three 
thousand years, and we shall perceive in the centre 
of the hieroglyphical firmament the ram, the emblem 
of Amun, or Jupiter- Amm on, the primordial light, 
and God of gods. Further down appear the rest of 
the ecliptic symbols, followed by their satellites, etc., 
and thus descending through all the spheres until 
merging beneath the moon, and at last arriving at 
the terrestrial gods, when the grand planetary pyra- 






IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 267 

mid terminates in Isis, the broad and solid basis 
comprising all material existence. 

The better to appreciate an investigation like the 
present, it should be carefully borne in mind, that, 
according to the cosmic and theogonic systems of 
the ancients, all the mundane gods, as well as all 
the constituent elements of the universe, respectively 
well and flow out of each other, while the life- 
stream of existence which supplies all these evolu- 
tions or cosmic sequences, emanates from the source 
of all being — the self-existent Divinity ; and that 
from its apex to its foundation, this pyramidal 
world-structure, thus evolved and united in a geni- 
tive relationship of its parts, is sustained or borne 
up by a cosmic band of resplendent light termi- 
nating in the hands of Annubis-Thoth-Hermes, the 
Supreme Spirit, and omnipotent controller of the 
mundane spheres. The priest representing Hermes, 
stands at the sacred altar with the Hermes-lantern 
in his hand : it is the pregnant symbol of the uni- 
verse, and of the astounding drama which the gods 
enact in it ; or, in other words, of all the diversified 
and efficient manifestations of the deities and of 
organic existence. In the top of this mundane lan- 
tern are the holy oil and the lampic flame, typifying 
central planetary light with its nebulous atmosphere. 
The centre of it is furnished with a mirror contain- 
ing fruits and plants — the emblems of organic life, 
and at its base is placed a vase replenished with the 
holy water of the Nile. Whoever looks into this 
magic reflector beholds the image of the universe ! 
I will only add that, according to Arabian writers^ 
each of the seven chambers of the pyramids bore 



268 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the name of a planet, and that therefore the primary 
design of those who reared these massive structures 
was to symbolize a great cosmic truth.* This view 
of the subject is still further confirmed by the follow- 
ing observations of a writer in the Neiv Edinburgh 
Encyclopcedia: "In all the pyramids," says he, "the 
entrance is in the north front, and the descending 
passages have an angle of twenty-six or twenty- 
seven degrees. This line seems to be nearly directed 
to the pole star, and the north face of the pyramid 
to be almost in a plane of the earth's equator. This 
we believe has never been remarked ; and we want 
only accurate measures to put it beyond a doubt. 
But if they even deviated two or three degrees, this 
only shows the rudeness of astronomical knowledge 
at the time when the pyramids were built, or the 
rudeness of the methods by which the angles were 
laid down." 



* As repositories of the dead, the pyramids played a subordi- 
nate yet significant part, while their architectural forms were in- 
timately connected with one of the primary intentions of their 
builders. As the original design in constructing them was to 
typify the emanation of all things from a point in the invisible 
world — represented by the apex of the pyramid, whence they 
subtended and spread out into circumambient space like the 
branches of an inverted tree ; so the sepulchral use to which they 
were applied, had for its object to place the soul, confined in the 
embalmed and mummied body, in such a position where, at the 
expiration of three thousand years, when it should again return 
to its primeval state to recommence a course of active existence 
or undergo another evolution, it might be able the more readily 
to effect this important end through the medium of the mundane 
pillar — the pyramid, which communicated with the two worlds, 
and was the mystic link of both. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 269 

Among the Hindoos, all the pagodas are of a 
pyramidal or conical form, or have towers of that 
shape in the buildings which surround them. Sir 
William Jones seems to regard the pyramidal struc- 
tures of antiquity, the tower of Babel not excepted, 
as the images of Manhadeva or Siva; and I may 
remark that at least as far as the Hindoos are con- 
cerned, this hypothesis is, to some extent, founded in 
truth, inasmuch as Meru is the embodied image and 
mundane repository of the divinity of Siva, and of 
course the sanctified type of all sacred architecture 
among his votaries. The pyramidal order of archi- 
tecture appears to have prevailed universally among 
the people of remote ages, and to have deen coex- 
tensive with the early civilization of the human 
race. According to Stephens's " Central America," 
the ruins of Copan, situated in the province of 
Honduras, teem with the pyramidal remains of the 
primitive inhabitants of that ancient city. Among 
the numerous structures of this kind which illustrate 
these ruins, the Temple of Copan deserves a brief 
notice. " This temple," writes our distinguished 
antiquary, "is an oblong inclosure. The front or 
river wall extends on a right line north and south 
six hundred and twenty-four feet, and it is from 
sixty to ninety feet in height. It is made of cut 
stones, from three to six feet in length, and a foot 
and a half in breadth. In many places the stones 
have been thrown down by bushes growing out of 
the crevices, and in one place there is a small open- 
ing, from which the ruins are sometimes called by 
the Indians, las Ventanas, or windows. The other 
three sides consist of ranges of steps and pyramidal 
23* 



270 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

structures, rising from thirty to one hundred and 
forty feet in height on the slope. The whole line 
of survey is two thousand eight hundred and thirty- 
six feet, which though gigantic and extraordinary 
for a ruined structure of the aborigines, that the 
reader's imagination may not mislead him, I con- 
sider it necessary to say, is not so large as the base 
of the great Pyramid of Ghizeh.* The obelisks of 
antiquity compose an important element in the 
category of cosmic symbols, and will therefore form 
the closing theme of this paragraph. 

In the Zendavesta- — the sacred Scriptures of the 
ancient Persians, the primeval fire is called the bond 
between Zeruane Akerene and Ormuzd, or between 
the Supreme God and his highest beneficent evolu- 
tion, considered as the good mundane demiurgus. In 
relation to the First Cause, Mithras, the supermun- 
dane, highest emanation of the Supreme Being, and 
next to him in rank and power is the sun of grace ; 
in relation to Ahriman, the fire of love ; in relation 
to nature, the ward and purifier of the sun ; in rela- 
tion to mankind, the refiner ; and in all these rela- 
tions combined, the mediator. According to the 
foregoing dogmas, a bond of fire connects God and 
creation ; Mithras mediates between the one Eternal 
and his manifold works ; and these facts involve the 



* This pyramid, known preeminently as the great pyramid, was 
built in the reign of the profligate Cheops ; it required, according 
to Herodotus, twenty years in its erection ; is, as we learn from 
Savary, five hundred and seventeen feet six inches in perpendicu- 
lar height ; and has a square base of seven hundred feet, covering 
an area of upwards of eleven acres. — G. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. " 271 

idea of an obeliskic form of agency between absolute 
and contingent existence, beginning in unity and ter- 
minating in plurality. The obelisks, dedicated to the 
sun as the representative and brightest image of the 
primordial light, were intended to typify its rays, both 
in respect to their lineal emission and their refracted 
expansion. Hence their apices generally point to- 
wards heaven, though the Mycenean and some 
others present a position the reverse of this, or ob- 
tuse summits and pointed bases ; arid the architects 
who thus erected them on a principle adverse to the 
laws of gravity, wished, no doubt, to symbolize the 
terrestrial fires, as they are recognized in volcanos ; 
in coal and naphtha-beds ; in inflammable gases ; 
and in the ordinary forms of combustion, the rays 
of which ascend, and by their refraction in the 
lower strata of the atmosphere, form counterparts to 
the inverted obelisks. Among the sculptured re- 
mains which attest the plastic skill of the Persians, 
obelisks are actually found with ascending rays* 



*Near Baku, a city of Georgia, situated upon the western 
coast of the Caspian Sea, the surface-soil is extensively impreg- 
nated with inflammable gas, evolved from the petroleum or naph- 
tha with which the earth of that region abounds to an almost in- 
credible degree. Viewed from a distance, the ignited jets of 
naphtha, issuing everywhere from the crevices of the soil during 
certain periods of the year, give to the country the appearance 
of a solid sheet of flame overspreading its surface. Here some • 
of the Gebres or Guebres — the fire-worshippers of India, whither 
they emigrated to escape from the faith of the Koran or the scime- 
tars of the faithful, have established a colony and founded a tem- 
ple. For the following interesting facts, we are indebted to -the 
Russian Archives for Scientific Information : " When," says a 
distinguished Russian lady who, with her husband and sons, vis- 



272 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

The Hermen, Ermin, or Irmans'tiide, of the ancient 
Franks and other German nations, signifies an obe- 
lisk, a pyramid, etc. ; and Mone teaches us that the 
Irman-obelisk, or pillar, was a statue of Irmin, the 
second son of Hermin ; a name which conveyed the 
idea of man, or humanity. In the course of ages, 
the personal existence of Irmin became obliterated 
from the minds of his votaries, and his name, like 
that of his illustrious sire, came to denote mankind, 
especially the Teutonic people. I am of opinion 
that the Irmansul was one of the holy relics 
which these people carried with them in their emi- 
gration from Asia, and that instead of Irmin, it was 
originally designed to commemorate the name and 
character of the Egyptian god Hermes, the mythi- 
cally and hieroglyphically acknowledged founder of 
obeliskic architecture ; the father and first teacher of 



ited this Gebre temple, " we finally reached the place, it was 
pitch dark; the flames were rising in beautiful purity to the 
peaceful sky of night, and the entire castle within which was the 
temple, seemed to be surrounded by a circle of watchfires. 
These were lighted by Persians from the neighborhood, who 
were busy burning lime and baking bread. All that is necessary, 
to obtain the gas, is to make a hole in the ground, touch a burn- 
ing coal to it, and an inexhaustible flame rises forth like a spring. 
Behind this range of little flames and fires, rose in the pale light 
the dirty white walls of the castle, in the centre of which there 
flashed from the summit of two lofty pillars, great masses of the 
purest, clearest, and keenest flames, which were now bent down 
horizontally and wreathed like serpents by the force of the wind, 
and now rose perpendicularly to the sky, whose dome they lighted 
up like two vast altar tapers, etc." The priest who officiated on 
this occasion, wore a white turban and a brown robe — the rem- 
nant majesty of a pristine glory ! 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 273 

all science ; the erudite prototype of the sacerdotal 
order ; the exalted bearer of the cosmical lantern 
and the cosmical mirror ; the soul of the world ; the 
author, of all intellectual light and spiritual gifts: 
the mundane symbol of the Supreme Mind, and 
himself that Supreme Mind ! 



— — — 



DIVISION II. 



THE GODS OF THE HEATHENS, REPRESENTED IN MYTHOL- 
OGY AS THE MUNDANE SOURCES AND DISPENSERS OF 
LIGHT AND FIRE, AND CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO 
THEIR PNEUMATICAL ATTRIBUTES, OR THEIR SPIRIT- 
UALITY, AND ETHICAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 



SECTION I. 

THE MITHRAS AND MITRA OF THE PERSIANS. 

Agreeably to the statement made by Firmicus, 
in his " Errours of Profane Religion," the existence 
of Mithras and Mitra had its origin in a metaphys- 
ical subtilty of the Persians, who resolved their 
supreme god Zeus into two sexes, represented by 
Mithras and Mitra, in whose persons they sought 
to symbolize and to adore the inherent pyric attri- 
butes of their Divine parent as male and female 
fires.* With these ideas, excepting the nominal 

* The reader will readily perceive that though the statement of 
Firmicus is essentially true, yet that in regard to the name of the 
Supreme Being of the Persians, it is palpably false ; for not Zeus, 
but Zeruane Akerene, was the Supreme God of the ancient 
builders of Persepolis. The first, the highest, and the purest 
emanation from him, is Mithras, and Mithra is the mundane body, 
inclosing in her ample womb the fires of creation, infused into it 
by the primordial source of light, Zeruane Akerene, through 
the medium of Ormuzd, the creator of the world. 

(274) 



THE HEATHEN KELIGION, ETC. 275 



genesis of Mithras and Mitra, the doctrines of- the 
Zendavesta — the bible of the ancient fire-worship- 
pers, known as the Guebres or Parsees, perfectly 
agree. They proclaim fire as the omnipotent organ 
of divine energy, and teach that it includes mascu- 
line and feminine attributes, or that it is either gen- 
erative or conceiving and bearing. Zoroaster, the 
world-renowned hierophant, called Zeratusht, Zer- 
dusht, or Zaradnsh by the Persians, and Zoroastres 
by the Greeks, has the honor to have first promul- 
gated, or at reast reduced into a system, the tenets « 
of the Zendavesta. This important event, the traces 
of which still exist among mankind, took place in 
the age of Gustasp, or Gushtasp, who is supposed 
by some authors — erroneously, no doubt, to be the 
same as Darius Hystaspes* Mitra was the name 
of the principal fire-goddess among the Persians. 
In Assyria she was worshipped under the appella- 
tion of Mylitta, and in Arabia under that of Alitta. 
Among the imaginative Greeks, she figured under 
the diversified cognomens of Ilithyia, Artemis, Aph- 
rodite, Proserpine or Persephone, Urania, Hecate, 
etc., all the pyric excellences of whom, the devout 
Persians included in their idea of Mitra — the mother 
of the world and of all its generative productions. 
The name Mitra is supposed to be derived from the 
Persic Mihr or Mihir — love, and the graceful god- 
dess who bears it is justly regarded as the Persian 

* Hyde and Prideaux make Zoroaster contemporary with Da- 
rius Hystaspes : a supposition which confounds this prince with 
Gushtasp ; while, as it appears from Movie, the Greek writers of 
the age of Darius Hystaspes fixed the era of the hierophant many 
centuries anterior to their own time. 



276 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Venus.* In her bright and caustic connubial rela- 
tions, she claims Mithras as her illustrious and de- 
voted consort, who also responds to the denomina- 
tion of Perses, a title which is probably synonymous 
with the phrase the Persian, and signifies the light, 
or shining. This splendid name, under which Mithras 
had displayed his presence and received the homage 
due to a divinity of light and fire, in Ethiopia, Egypt, 
and Greece, at last survived only in the Sabazia, 
or orgies of Bacchus. Light and fire are not only 
t the most subtile, but also the most pure and effective 
forms of matter in nature ; and therefore, among all 
the elementary bodies of which the universe is com- 
posed, they may be reasonably presumed to be pre- 
eminently calculated to reflect with at least some 
approximation to truth, the power and glory of the 
Eternal. Hence we need not be surprised that fire- 
worship, or rather the worship of God under the 
personified symbols of fire, is almost coeval with the 
existence of the human race. Fire-worship appears 
to have been common to the ritual of the Bramins 
and the Parsees, and to have spread from India and 
Persia among the rest of mankind. Sabaism, or 
the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars, is 
its most natural and most ancient form. Terrestrial 
fires : such, for instance, as those of the naphtha- 
fountains of Aderbidshan in Persia — the altar and 
vestal fires of nature's priesthood, whose pure, bright 
flame seems to vie with the eradiated fires of the 
celestial orbs, in illustrating and inculcating the 



* Mihr denotes also the sun in its capacity of recipient of the 
luminous and caloric rays from the primordial light 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 277 

homage that is due to the Divine Majesty, may have 
suggested thp idea of fire-altars, vestal fires, and the 
organization of a harmonious and an imposing liturgic 
fire-service among the nations of antiquity. Persia, 
— the land of light, has the honor to have borne 
away the palm among the ancients, in its profound 
devotion to the religion based upon the principles of 
light and heat; and it was in the Eden-plain of 
Schiras that the God of Light was adored in the 
worship and under the name of Mithras — the per- 
sonified symbol of fire, as the masculine element of 
creation. Mithras, the deified symbol of light and 
fire, stood ethically between Ormuzd and Ahriman, 
and was therefore denominated the mediator: a 
function which does not imply a participation in the 
opposite and perverse nature of the latter of these 
mundane powers, but which is to be viewed merely 
as a gracious extension of aid to the beneficent god 
Ormuzd, for the important purpose of facilitating 
the reconciliation of the malignant Ahriman to 
Zeruane Akerene, and of eventually securing his 
submission to the divine laws. In his solar attri- 
bute, Mithras, considered in regard to day and night, 
is represented as dwelling both in the spheres of 
light and in the regions of darkness. As mediator 
between god and man, he is the suffering yet trium- 
phant savior. He is emphatically called the highest 
god : a title which is strictly appropriate only when 
he is compared with other emanations of the Su- 
preme Being; for he is the prototokos — the first- 
born of the gods. This circumstance, as also the 
fact that he is demiurgus, in as far as he supplies 
more immediately the means and preeminently di- 

24 



278 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

rects the ends of creation : thus acting as medial 
factor, or nexus, between the Eternal and Onnuzd, 
justly elevate him to the rank of the highest mun- 
dane divinity. Hence he is expressly called the 
organ or cosmic agent through whom all the ele- 
ments and laws of the universe are controlled agree- 
ably to the divine will.* With the increasing civili- 
zation of mankind, and the consequent improvement 
of their religious ideas, the Mithras-creed was very 
widely disseminated. The Ethiopians revered the 
Persian fire-god as their oldest lawgiver and the 
founder of their religion. It was the popular belief 
of the people of the Nile that in Egypt — the land 



* As the great Egyptian deity, known to us as Osiris — thus 
denominated from Hesios and Hieros : the things of Hades and 
of Heaven, the union or connection of which he personified, was 
the exalted model of conduct to every pious Egyptian ; so Mith- 
ras — the magnificent fire divinity and eifulgent genius of the 
sun, was the illustrious prototype of every Parsee : a name which 
accordingly signifies the clear, or the bright. His being consisted 
of light: in a higher sense, of intellectual light; and in the highest 
sense, of empyreal light, or Divine light atod fire. In him every 
Parsee has a splendid precedent of a twofold glorification through 
light, and into light. ; and the lofty and admirable object of the 
Mithras-religion, or Magianism, is illumination, or the transforma- 
tion of darkness into light, and the triumph of the good through- 
out all nature : in the body, in the soul, in the family circle, and 
in the state. Persia itself is, according to Creuzer, Pares and 
Pars — the land of light! Religion, liturgic service, ethics, civil 
institutions, political and domestic economy, constitute one organic 
and indivisible totality, founded and sustained upon the principles 
of light. So thoroughly did the idea of purity pervade the entire 
Mithras religion, and animate every relation of human life, that a 
solemn lustration, a holy baptism of initiation, was deemed indis- 
pensable to its professors. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 279 

of monumental fame, where 'Mithras and Memnon 
reciprocated dominion or reigned in juxtaposition, 
the former built On or Heliopolis — the sun-city, 
whose first king bore the name of Mitres or Mestres ; 
and that upon the suggestion of a dream he erected 
obelisks. They were sun-obelisks — solar monu- 
ments, or the architectural symbols of the origin and 
refractive expansion of the solar rays, and of the 
light which, emanating as the active principle of 
creation from the throne of God, reveals itself in 
the production of the - universe, as its vast, ramous, 
obeliskic base. As the sun, considered upon the 
principles of pneumatology, Mithras bears a num- 
ber of brilliant attributes ; as, the eye of Orrrmzd ; 
the dazzling, fleet-coursing, and mighty hero ; the 
fructifier of the desert ; the most exalted of the 
Izeds — good genii ; the sleepless ; and the protector 
of Persia. Hence he is not only the sun, inasmuch 
as this glorious luminary is genetically derived from 
him as the honored and resplendent repository of 
the primeval light, but also the genius or controlling 
energy of the sun, dispensing as such the blessings 
of light and heat to mother earth. In the Mithras- 
caves, he was represented as standing between light 
and darkness — his position being at the entrance, 
in the sign of Taurus, the opener of the solar year, 
where night and day commingle, and twilight 
reigns. Here, upon the threshold of the rising 
year, he appears as the gallant champion of light 
and heat, wrestling with the dark, cold, wintry influ- 
ences of the northern hemisphere. In other words, 
Mithras assumes his place in the vernal equinox, 
and has the north — in the language of the ancients, 



280 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the lower signs of the ecliptic, on his right, and the 
southern or upper on his left hand, standing at the 
sideral division line of light and darkness, or at the 
point which marks the superior and inferior rotation 
of the planets : in popular phrase, between Heaven 
and Hades. Contemplated ethically as the personi- 
fication of humanity, he is light and darkness, pure 
and impure ; participates in the adversities and sor- 
rows of mankind ; but finally triumphs in good. At 
the consummation of all things, he will act as the 
mediator and umpire between light and darkness; 
annihilate the latter ; and finally, by the eradication 
of evil, reconcile Ahriman to Ormuzd. From these 
researches, it is evident that Mithras is the cosmic 
basis of all things ; that he is the unity before du- 
ality — the first and highest divine emanation ; and 
that he is therefore virtually Zeruane Akerene him- 
self, and hence appropriately styled the Father. As 
mediator in the flesh, Mithras conducts the souls of 
mortals back to God through the zodiacal path, in 
the same manner as he once led them into the body. 
Mythology records the existence of innumerable 
Mithras-hieroglyphics, representing the grand taurian 
sacrifice. The consecrated place of immolation is 
usually in the mouth of the Mithracosmic cave. 
According to Eubulus, Zoroaster, the golden star ; 
the profound hierophant and venerable prophet ; the 
bringer of the written law from heaven ; the great 
Magus, and the immortal reformer of Magianism, 
constructed or prepared such a cave, in which he 
typified the nature and wonders of the universe. 
Every thing in this prototype of the Mithrasic caves, 
was singularly significant: the twilig*ht — the em- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 281 

blem of the origin of all things in darkness through 
the agency of light ; and the rock in which the cave 
was wrought, and which defined its area, denoted 
the pre-cosmic matter or the passive basis of organic 
existence. "Within its circumference, were displayed 
all the planetary relations and forms of creation ; as, 
the zones, the fixed stars, the primary and secondary 
planets, the zodiac, the elements, etc. In the en- 
trance of the cave is seen Mithras in a flowing robe, 
a Phrygian cap, and a long nether garment, kneel- 
ing upon an ox — taurus, the tail of which terminates 
in three spikes of corn. With his left hand, the 
divine sacrificer closes the nostrils of the devoted 
beast, and with the right, plunges a dagger into his 
heart. A dog comes up in front of the victim ; a 
snake crawls forth to lick his blood ; and a scorpion 
nips him in the scrotum. Another Mithrasic cave, 
illustrating the mysteries and powers of creation, 
displays two persons, a youth and an aged man, the 
former bearing an upraised, and the latter, a de- 
clining torch. In the front part of the tableau is 
observed a tree, the leaf-buds of which are just 
unfolding themselves. Under the tree is perceived 
the head of an ox, presenting an erect torch; and 
behind it, another head of the same animal, contain- 
ing fruit, accompanied by the scorpion already no- 
ticed, and bearing a reversed torch. The ceiling of 
the cave discloses to view seven Dadgahs, or fire- 
altars ; and on its walls are portrayed the sun 
mounted upon a car, drawn by four coursers, facing 
the four cardinal points of the compass, and the 
moon going forth in her chariot propelled by two 
steeds, etc, Among the hieroglyphics of these caves, 
24* 



282 ME HEATHEN EELIGION 

figure also the palm-tree, the death-skull, etc. Be- 
side the usual cosmic representations, in a Mithras- 
cave represented by Hyde, new objects are intro- 
duced into the scene, and old ones appear under 
modified forms. It, too, has its astronomical taurus, 
but on each side of him is a youth, the one holding 
an arrow, while the other typifies the impregnation 
of the earth. Its floor images" the ocean and one of 
its most celebrated inhabitants — the dolphin. The 
following facts are the result of an attempt to eluci- 
date the symbolical import of the taurian sacrifice 
as represented in the Mithras-caves. Mithras, as 
the symbol of the male-mundane fire, is said to be 
the son of the Persian world-mountain Bordj, from 
whose primeval rocks he went forth as a ray of fire, 
permeating and inflaming the earth.* The ox, 



* Mithras, born as a spark of the rocks of the Bordj, is an 
idea which, to the tyro in mythology, must seem to border on 
absurdity. Perhaps a ray of light may be thrown upon the mys- 
tery of the rock-born god. The Bordj, in its capacity of world- 
mountain, contains, mytho-philosophically speaking, the active 
and the passive principles of creation. Rock, or stone, is earth, 
according to the science of geology ; and earth and water are the 
passive elements of cosmic existence — the female principles, 
agreeably to cosmogonic lore ; the matrix in which the world was 
cast ; the mother in whose fruitful womb it was connubially be- 
gotten. Light and fire, etc., are the active or male principles of 
creation, and these being infused into the passive elements of 
earth, water, etc., the union results in the procreation of the 
world. The pure element of fire, regarded as light and heat, is 
thus embodied in matter ; the tellurian mother has conceived, and 
whenever fire is evolved or liberated from her body, she brings 
forth, and the child is greater and nobler than herself, for it is a 
male, and the reflection or reemission of the primordial fire in- 
fused into her by the Creator. This creator, considered as tho 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 283 

which is immolated in the entrance of the cave, is 
the earth, which the great Dshemshid, in the char- 
acter of the personified solar year, once cleaved with 
his golden dagger.* In a more exalted sense, he is 
matter contemplated as the seed-womb of being, 
and therefore to be viewed as being of the feminine 
gender, while Mithras, the masculine power, is the 
demiurgic opener of this tellurian world-womb, 
whose waters are thus fructified by the fire-rays of 
the primordial light. Astronomically interpreted, 
Mithras is the sun, borne upon taurus, into which 
the sun enters at the vernal equinox.f It is then 



primary source of all things, is first and preeminently the Eternal 
himself, and secondly Mithras, viewed in his capacity of personi- 
fied primordial light, and as such the immediate source of crea- 
tion, both intellectually and as it regards its active and more 
ethereal elements — light and fire. Thus Mithras, born of the 
rock-mountain of the world — the Bordj, which is hence the 
Mitra or the feminine of Mithras : the Persian fire-goddess, and 
therefore at once the mother and the wife of the fire-god Mithras, 
is the electric spark of Zeruane Akerene, revealed in time and 
in the flesh. According to Kleuker, in his Anhang zum Zenda- 
vesta, the Bordj had once a real, historic existence. I will only 
add, that in consequence of his petraic birth, Mithras was hon- 
ored among the Persians with the appellative formula of Theos 
ek petras — the god of the rock ! 

* Dshemshid was among the ancient Persians what Alexander 
and Solomon were among the Greeks and Hebrews, the hero 
of the national myth and song. Under his reign Persia attained 
its greatest glory. He was at first known as Dshem, but Shid, 
meaning the sun, was added to his name on account of his re- 
splendent beauty. 

f About twenty-two centuries ago, the constellations of the 
zodiac and the signs of the ecliptic corresponded, but owing to 
the retrograde motion of the equinoxes, the latter have fallen 



284 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

that this sun-god cleaves taurus, when his blood 
flows reeking to the earth and fructifies it. With the 
autumnal equinox, the sun passes into Scorpio, and 
now the vital energies of vegetation and the lower 
types of organic life generally, begin to wane or be- 
come exhausted, and nature pants for rest — the 
prelude of re-creation: the venomous insect — the 
scorpion, gnaws at the seminal glands of the taurian 
beast. The.vernant tree is to be regarded as the 
type of spring, and the youth with the upraised 
torch, as the symbol of the ascension of the sun in 
the ecliptic, etc. ; while the season of physical decay 
and elementary stagnation — the autumn, is further 
symbolized by the fruit-bearing tree, and the hoary, 
aged individual, tottering on the confines of life. 
The snake, licking up the blood of the expiring 
beast — the earth, stabbed by Mithras, or the sun, 
retrograding into the southern hemisphere, is to be 
regarded as the good snake, the agathodaimon, re- 
ceiving the spilled life of the terrestrial taurus, and 
preserving it in its world-ring, which uncoils again 
at the coming spring. Only in so far as the snake 
completes the apparent destruction of taurus, and 
infallibly withholds its fructifying blood for a season, 
can it be considered as evil, and stigmatized as the 
snake of death. The dying taurus, viewed in his 
cosmic relation as Abadus, or the mundane taurus, 
typifies the dissolution of the world, and in this 
sense the snake is the world-snake, in the proper 



back of the former about thirty-one degrees, and therefore at 
present the vernal equinox opens in Aries instead of Taurus, as 
was then the case. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 285 

and most extensive import of the term. The sun 
and moon, and the seven fire-altars, designating the 
seven planets, as defined by the ancients, are emble- 
matical of their solar system. The dog gazing at 
the expiring victim, is a concomitance of the good 
spirit, or the world contemplated as agathodaimon : 
the dog of hope and consolation, which reminds the 
dying world-beast of Tashter and regeneration, after 
the accomplishment of the great cosmic cycle of 
twelve thousand years. In short, he is the pregnant 
symbol of Sirius, or the dog-star, called Sothis — 
the star of salvation, among the Egyptians, and 
Tashter, by the Persians. When, at the consum- 
mation of all things, Sirius shall again cast a 
glance at the world, then will dawn the great and 
decisive day of palingenesis. Hence a practice of 
the ancient Persians, observed at the death-bed of 
their countrymen, and fraught with profound signifi- 
cance, is rendered intelligible to the mythological 
student. As soon as it was ascertained that the 
spirit of the death-doomed sufferer was about to 
desert its fragile tenement, the friends of the dying 
led a dog to him, which received a morsel of food 
out of his hand. This pathetic act was denomi- 
nated Sag-did — the dog sees : a consoling pledge of 
a hopeful immortality. The dog eyeing the bleed- 
ing, dying taurus, expresses the same vaticinal idea 
cosmically. Thus this animal, so despised among 
the ancient Jews and the modern Turks, once figured 
as the hallowed prophet of a happy future, and the 
honored emblem of a certain and blissful resurrec- 
tion. Governed by a similar faith, and animated 
with the same irrepressible desire of an ameliorated 



286 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

immortality, the dying Hindoo, full of faith and 
piety, takes into his hand the tail of a cow, in order 
to purify his soul before its exit into another world.* 
The Mithriaca, or Mithras-worship, was of a bland, 
cheerful character, and pleasure and festivities, not 
mortification and monastic austerity, marked the 
genial spirit by which it was animated. From 
Persia, as its focal centre, it spread to Armenia, 
Cappadocia, Pontus, Cilicia, Greece — as has been 
already stated — Rome, and even Germany. Nay, 
it seems from Humboldt's " Pittoresken Ansichten- 
der Cordilleren," that Mithras was not unknown in 
the halls and temples of the Montezumas. " It also 
appears," thus writes this distinguished German 
scholar, "that the Mexican Tonatiuh is identical 
both with the Krischna of the Hindoos, as he is cele- 
brated in song in the Bhagavata Purana, and the 

* The cow is employed for this purpose instead of the ox, 
probably because she is of a more gentle disposition, and there- 
fore more tractable. The ox, properly speaking the bull, as 
the zodiacal sign in -which the great year began, is the proper 
emblem of a life to come, and also a means of purification ; for, 
regarded as the sun in the vernal equinox, he frees nature from 
the hurtful influences and dreary phenomena of the winter season. 
How important a part the dog played in the momentous dogmas 
of death and immortality, is seen from the circumstance that the 
fac-simile of a great many dogs is sculptured on the mortuary 
monument of Darius Hystaspes. In Greece, also, canine lustra- 
tions were devoutly practised, as it appears from Plutarch, who, 
speaking of the festival of the Lupercalia, celebrated on the elev- 
enth of February, in honor of Pan, adds : " As to the dog, if this 
be a feast of lustration — it was, man of Chasronea ! we may sup- 
pose it is sacrificed, in order to be used in purifying; for the 
Greeks, in their purifications, make use of dogs, and perform the 
ceremonies which they call PeriskulakismoL" — Langhorne. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 287 

Mithras of the Persians" The Persians celebrated 
a splendid festival in honor of Mithras on the first 
day succeeding the winter solstice, called Mirrhagan, 
or Mirgan, derived nominally from Mihr — the sun, 
the object of which was to commemorate the birth 
of Mithras, or the return of the god of day to the 
northern hemisphere. In Rome, the seven-hilled 
mistress of the world, the same festival was observed 
on the eighth of the calends of January, or the twen- 
ty-fifth of December, under the name of Natalis solis 
Invicti : a day of universal rejoicing, illustrated by 
illuminations and public games. Under the observ- 
ance, of various imposing and solemn ceremonies, 
the people sallied forth into open space, when they 
fixedly gazed up towards heaven, realizing and in- 
dexing the great event. With the eagle and stand- 
ards of the Roman legions, the Mithriaca were in- 
troduced into the bogs and forests of Germany. 
According to Sattler's " Geschichte des Herzogthums 
Wirtemberg," some hieroglyphical remains attest 
the immigration of the Persian god to Fehlbach, 
where a stone has been found bearing the head of 
an ox, and in a different part of the kingdom an- 
other, containing the inscription of Soli invicto 
Mithrce. At Ladenburg, anciently known as Lupo- 
dunum, and situated on the Neckar, Mithras could 
boast of adorers, and glory in the symbols of his 
worship and of his divinity. A relief found there, 
represents the tauris-sacrifice under rather unusual 
accompaniments, indicative of an alliance of Magi- 
anism with Sabazianism, or the orgies of the Thracian 
Bacchus. Mithras is likewise known as the triplex, 
in- allusion to the ancient division of the year into 



288 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

three seasons. In more recent times, a square or a 
circle divided into four segments, and intended as a 
symbol of Mithras, is supposed to have signified 
the four seasons, which are now recognized in the 
temperate zone : some authors make it denotive of 
the four elements ; and I add that it may at the 
same time have implied the quadrifid division of the 
earth by its pole and equator. To Mithras, as the 
prolific source of generation, the trigon — the em- 
blem of fruitfulness, was sacred. Its origin is to be 
sought in the celebrated phallus, so frequently con- 
demned, and so seldom understood. It denotes the 
simulacrum ligneum membri virilis, which Isis, after 
the murder of Osiris, unable to recover the real 
organ among the mangled and scattered remains of 
her unfortunate husband, with great skill and mag- 
nanimity substituted in its place. A representation 
of it made of wood, was the phallus, which was 
carried in procession during the sacred festivals in- 
stituted in honor of Osiris. The people looked upon 
it as the emblem of fecundity, and the mention of it 
among the ancients, never conveyed any impure 
thought or lascivious reflection. The festivals of 
the phallus were imitated by the Greeks, and intro- 
duced into other parts of Europe by the Athenians, 
who made the phallus-procession a part of the 
celebration of the Dionysia of the god of wine. 

The lions with the attributes of Mithras and Mi- 
tra- Venus, appearing in relief on both sides of the 
gate-pillar of Micenae, a town of Argolis in Pelo- 
ponnesus, denote the active and passive state of 
nature during the time when the sun is in Leo, — 
now Cancer, — the period of the year at which 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 289 

the fiery god penetrates with his glowing rays both 
the solid earth and the fluid abyss of the ocean. 
The pillar itself is a symbol of Mithras regarded 
as" the sun, or rather as the genius and warder of 
the solar orb. Obelisks, the expressive types of the 
sun's rays, were sacred to him. Finally, the lion 
figuring in isolated majesty among his insignia, im- 
plies the sun in its culmination, and the empyrean 
fires of the celestial world. 



25 



SECTION II. 

VESTA, HER FIRES AND PRIESTESSES; ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 



CHAPTER I. 



VESTA, HER FIRES AND PRIESTESSES. 

Vesta is the Latin, and Hestia, derived from 
Estia, the Greek appellation of the glowing goddess, 
who is the personification of the inextinguishable 
fires, hidden in the centre of the terrestrial and the 
supernal worlds* To this goddess the pure, bright, 
igneous body known as fire, is preeminently sacred. 

* This fire-goddess being denominated Hestia, or Vesta, is thus 
explained by Cicero : " Vis autem ejus ad aras et focos pertinet." 
Other authors make her synonymous with the earth, and thus ac- 
count for her name : " Quod plantis frugibusquc terra vestiatur." 
The Pythagoreans called the central fires of the world Vesta, 
Hestia, or Monas ; and hence Vesta is the fire of the earth, the 
fire of every planetary orb, the fire of the universe : a small god- 
dess in her restricted sphere among mankind ; a supremely great 
divinity in respect to her vast, mundane empire. There is a re- 
markable coincidence of sound and meaning between the Hebrew 
Asch, the Greek Estia and Hephaistos, the Latin Vesta, and the 
German Esse, and Asche, terms which all signify fire, or are pri- 
marily associated with the idea of heat — cestas. 

(290) 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 291 

In honor of her, it is kindled upon her domestic 
altar, the hearth, and she requires it as the duty, 
while she makes it the interest of man, to guard and 
cherish it as the. surest pledge of his weal. As this 
potent fire-divinity, though unseen, makes herself 
felt from the centre to the circumference of the 
earth ; so by a gentle and benignant sway, she dif- 
fuses blessings and happiness from her genial 
hearth-fires through the human domicil. In her 
highest and purest attributes, Vesta is tantamount 
to ignis, or fire, regarded in its passivity, or recipient 
qualities ; and she is therefore the negative pole in 
electricity. There is, properly speaking, but one 
Vesta. Considered as the mother of the gods, the 
children claiming her maternity as her first-born are 
Saturn and Rhea; but contemplated as the goddess 
of fire and the patroness of the vestal virgins, she is 
the daughter of her own children, Saturn and Rhea. 
This is a species of theogony which, I confess, 
sounds very enigmatically ; and it seems as if a 
Samson only, with- his eyes and hair all sound and 
fully developed, could solve it. It will appear intel- 
ligibly enough, however, if we contemplate Vesta as 
the prima materia of the world, in which case she is 
necessarily the mother of Saturn or time, and of Rhea 
— the flowing and humid : the type of the chaotic 
waters that covered the earth, which, in the language 
of Scripture, was void and without form. On the other 
hand, if we view her as the fire-goddess, she is the 
daughter of her divine offspring, Saturn and Rhea ; 
or, which is the same thing, the mundane fire in- 
jected into the prima materia by the demiurgus, or 
creator of the world. Vesta glories in the flattering 



292 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

title of wife of the fiery Zeus, the mighty architect 
of the universe, and she sympathizes mairikos — ma- 
ternally, in the production of the universe, as Zeus 
does patrikos — paternally. Notwithstanding her 
maternal and connubial relations, she has preserved 
inviolate her virginity, though as the divinity who 
bears the mundane fire in her capacious womb, she 
is the secondary cause of all substantiality. This 
immaculate goddess occupied a preeminent rank 
among the Penates, or household deities of the Ro- 
mans, who on this account conferred upon her the 
fond and endearing appellation of Mater, or mother. 
As her principal seat of empire among mankind, the 
hearth-fire was not only sacred to her, but the domes- 
tic fireside, as the family altar, or sanctum sanctorum 
of the domicil, was deemed a holy place, which secured 
the inestimable privileges of asylum and inviolable 
protection to the wretched. So deeply was she im- 
pressed with the importance of the hearth, its fires, and 
its benign influence on individuals and families, and 
so anxiously was she concerned to perpetuate them 
in their unimpaired integrity, that upon her solicita- 
tion her brother Jupiter, under the appropriate name 
of Zeus Hephaistos, gallantly assumed the defence 
of her domestic rites and institutions. With her he 
is therefore frequently invoked in the stipulation of 
family and municipal compacts. In her august 
name, oaths were preferably taken, and an oath pro- 
nounced in the name of Vesta, was universally 
esteemed the most solemn, and held to be abso- 
lutely irrevocable. As Vesta was the tutelar deity 
of the fireside, so she revealed herself as the efficient 
centre of protection to society at large, thus includ- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 293 

ing under her divine segis, the family, the city, and 
the State. The bright, sacred flame that burned in 
honor of her name upon the city-hearth, was the 
municipal offering of all the private hearths, and it 
was fanned and nourished in an appropriate edifice, 
termed the Prytaneum, where in the name of the 
city, the magistrates known as the Prytanes, brought 
suitable offerings to the venerated guardian-goddess. 
The fire-service observed in honor of Vesta, the 
pyric mother, was distinguished by the name of 
Prytanistis. It is presumed, that for a long time the 
sacred fire was Vesta's only offering, though it was 
an ancient custom to strew green plants upon her 
altar: first, to manifest an especial veneration for 
her name ; and next, to attest a proper respect for 
the rest of the gods. In Rome, a libation of wine 
was made to her as well as to Janus and the Lares. 
Instead of green herbs, it became the practice at a 
later period to scatter incense upon her altars, and at 
last even victims were immolated to her no less 
than to the other divinities. Since whatever is 
offered in sacrifice, springs from the earth — the 
mother of all things, warmed, invigorated, and ma- 
tured by Vesta's plastic fire, the first and last obla- 
tion in all sacrificial rites, and the introductory and 
concluding prayer in every act of worship? were pre- 
ferred to her as a mark of peculiar distinction, and 
the pleasing evidence of an unwavering confidence. 
In the temple of Vesta at Rome, was deposited the 
celebrated Palladium, or statue of Pallas, the pledge 
of the safety and perpetuity of the empire. In the 
most remote periods of Vesta-worship, the bread of 
the people it is stated was prepared in her temples, 
25* 



294 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

while to the vestals the care of the public fountains 
was intrusted. Fire, water, and bread under the 
supervision of these fire-priestesses, are significant 
facts ! Fire, the active, generative principle in na- 
ture; water, the passive recipient — the mater- 
Vesta, both uniting, procreate or produce food — 
bread, for man! The annual festival of Vesta in 
Rome, occurred in the glowing month of June, and 
was accompanied by a procession in which the ass, 
usually appropriated to the train of Cybele, figured, 
either on account of some pyric quality, or because, 
as mythic record informs us, he once rendered im- 
portant service to the goddess. It is proper to 
remark, that there is considerable identity in the 
significance, the functions, and the character of 
Vesta and many of the other goddesses, especially 
Mitra and Minerva, and that such must necessarily be 
the case, as they are all more or less, though under 
different appellations and diversified rites, the per- 
sonifications of the passive, and the containers of 
the active, principles of creation. Flourishing in 
the full majesty of a superior divinity, Vesta appears 
in a long, flowing robe, with a veil over her face, a 
floral crown upon her head, a lamp in one hand, and 
a javelin, a palladium, or a drum, the latter a sym- 
bol of the boisterous winds in the bosom of the 
earth, in the other. The mythic history of Vesta is 
comparatively circumscribed. Besides, she cannot 
boast of a great many symbols, while her temples 
are small, inornate structures. The temples of 
Vesta were of a round form — to represent the figure 
of the earth, say some ; while others are of opinion 
that this rotund style of architecture denoted the 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 295 

centre of the universe, as the supreme seat of sway 
of the fervid goddess. Plutarch, writing upon this 
subject, thus expresses himself: " It is also said that 
Numa built the temple of Vesta where the perpetual 
fire was to be kept, in an orbicular form, not intend- 
ing to represent the figure of the earth, as if that 
was meant by Vesta, but the frame of the universe, 
in the centre of which the Pythagoreans place the 
element of fire, and give it the name of Vesta and 
Unity. The earth they suppose not to be without 
motion, nor situated in the centre of the world, but 
to make its revolution round the sphere of fire, being 
neither one of the most valuable nor principal parts 
of the great machine. Plato, too, in his old age, is 
reported to have been of the same opinion, assigning 
the earth a different situation from the centre, and 
leaving that as the place of honor, to a nobler ele- 
ment." * 

The statues of Vesta before which the devout 
Romans daily sacrificed to the goddess, were placed 
before the doors of their houses, and these conse- 
crated places of Vesta-worship were called vestibula, 
from the name of the divinity to whose service they 
were sacred. Like Athena, Vesta was admeta, en- 



* In two notes on this passage, Langhorne, the translator of 
Plutarch, admits, first, that it was the opinion of Philolauas and 
other Pythagoreans, that the element of fire was placed in the 
centre of the universe, but insists that according to Diogenes La- 
ertius, Pythagoras himself held the earth to be the centre. Sec- 
ondly, he says, " Dionysius of Halicarnassus, L. ii., is of opinion, 
and probably he is right, that Numa did build the temple of Vesta 
in a round form, to represent the figure of the earth, for by Vesta 
they meant the earth." 



296 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

joying perpetual juvenility, and therefore to her as 
well as to the former, the yearly heifer denominated 
juvenca, was dedicated. Vesta, we are told by Por- 
phyrius, had statues in Greece which proclaimed her 
to her tasteful votaries in the charming attributes of 
a fair virgin ; but as she contained within her the 
principles of fructification, the primordial fire, lodged 
in her as the impregnated mundane mother, she was 
represented with dependent mamma?. She appears, 
too, on coins, having the back part of the head 
veiled, a key, or the palladium, in one hand, and a 
wand in the other. Sometimes the inscription of 
the venerable title Vesta-Mater, accompanies these 
numismatico-hieroglyphical devices. An impression 
of a coin, procured by the archaeological Spanheim, 
exhibits the fire -goddess sitting in a little temple, 
while an altar before her sends forth a bright flame, 
which is assiduously nourished and regulated by the 
officiating Vestals. A sceptre mounted by a cross, 
is also one of Vesta's symbols, and the undoubted 
evidence of her supreme authority and queenly dig- 
nity. 

The Platonic philosophers graduated their ideas 
of Vesta to a truly Kantian transcendentalism. In 
his theory of the earth, Plotinus assumes the position 
that Vesta is the intelligence, the soul or nous of the 
earth, and Demeter the spirit. Proclus, in his com- 
mentary on the Cratylus of Plato, compares Vesta 
with Chthonia ; that is, Terra or Hera : the same as 
Demeter or Geres, and signifying the earth, and 
says that in the work of creation, she supplies the 
principles of fixation, or the indissoluble reality of 
things ; while Chthonia, in her primordial or chaotic 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 297 

state, it is presumed contributes as her share the 
conditions of form and the laws of affinity.* The 
same philosophers assert that the planetary world is 
indebted to Vesta for its permanent positions, its 
unalterable motions, and its fixed poles and centres. 
According to these doctrines of natural philosophy, 
Vesta is not an entity, but an abstraction. I add, 
in conclusion, that in relation to the earth, Vesta 
personates its fires, and is the body in which they 
reside; and that therefore she is both Vesta and 
Demeter, both fire and earth. This fire is the mas- 
culine element of creation, communicated to her 
keeping as the wife of Zeus, the demiurgus or archi- 
tect of the universe. 

The -immaculate priestesses of Vesta, known as 
the Vestal virgins, next claim our attention. The 
introduction of the sacred and perpetual fire at 
Rome, is traced back by some authors to the martial 
founder of Rome; by others, to Numa Pompilius, 
his pious and illustrious successor. It is certain 
that prior to either of these dates Vestal virgins ex- 
isted at Alba, and that the mother of Romulus was 
one of their number. Perpetual fires burned upon 
the altars of many of the nations of antiquity, 
among whom we may enumerate the Hindoos, the 



* Chthonia, strictly speaking, denotes the earth in its chaotic 
state. Here or Hera, signifying Herrin, or mistress, is one of the 
titles of Juno ; but Here or Era, in Greek, means also the earth, 
and is therefore synonymous with Chthonia ; with the Airtha of 
the ancient Goths ; the Anglo-Saxon Eorthe, Eriha, Hertha ; the 
German Erde ; the English earth ; the Danish Jord, etc. Agree- 
ably to the Latin orthography, Tacitus resolved these Teutonic 
synonyms into Herthus, the Frigga of the Scandinavians. 



298 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Ro- 
mans. They were derived from the pure flames of 
the Vestal lamps, which in Rome, were earthen ves- 
sels suspended in the air.* In Rome virgins only, 
in Greece, also, chaste widows, passed the age of 
childbearing, could aspire or deserve to be ranked 
among the distinguished officiants of Vesta. In 
respect to the former, we are expressly told that it 
was required of them that they should be of a good 
family, and without blemish or deformity in any 
part of their bodies. For the space of thirty years 
they had to observe the most rigid continence. The 
first decade of this prescribed term of service, they 
spent in learning the duties of the order ; the second 
Was employed in discharging them with a -suitable 
decorum and sanctity ; and the last they devoted 
to the instruction of those who had entered the no- 
vitiate. At the expiration of thirty years, they were 
permitted to marry, but if they still preferred celi- 
bacy, they ended their days in ministering to the 
rest of the Vestals. Few of the Vestals could be 
accused or proved guilty of the crime of violated 
chastity, and during the period of more than one 
thousand years, which marked the ample limits of 
their existence — from the reign of Numa to that of 



* Doctor Ward mentions a fire-god of the Hindoos, whom he 
calls Ungee. After having described the personal appearance of 
this refulgent divinity, to whom belong a thousand streams of 
glory issuing from his body, and seven tongues of flame, he adds: 
" Ungee has neither temples nor images consecrated to him ; but 
he has a service in the daily ceremonies of the Bramhuns ; and 
one class of his worshippers, called Sagniku Bramhuns, preserve 
perpetual fire, like the vestal virgins." 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 299 

Theodosius the Great, who dared to extinguish the 
celestial fire of Vesta, and to abolish the venerable 
and hallowed Vestal institution, only eighteen were 
proved faithless to their vows, and unworthy of their 
exalted vocation. At first only two virgins, named 
Gegania and Verania, were consecrated by Numa 
to the Vesta-service. Subsequently Canuleia and 
Tarpeia were clothed with the Vestal functions ; 
and finally Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, 
still further increased the order by the addition of 
two more candidates. This number, writes Plu- 
tarch, has continued to the present time. The pon~ 
tifex maximus, the illustrious and powerful chief of 
all the sacerdotal orders, and the interpreter and 
controller of all sacred rites, had the supervision of 
the Vestal priestesses. " If it happens, the sacred 
fire, by any accident to be put out," writes the author 
just referred to, " as the sacred lamp is said to have 
been at Athens, under the tyranny *of Aristion ; at 
Delphi, when the temple was burned by the Medes ; 
and at Rome, in the Mithridatic war, as also in the 
civil war, when not only the fire was extinguished, 
but the altar overturned: it is not to be lighted 
again from another fire, but new fire is to be gained 
by drawing a pure and unpolluted flame from the 
sunbeams.* They kindled it generally with concave 



* " If by any chance the sacred fire was extinguished," writes 
Tooke, " all public and private business was interrupted, and a 
vacation proclaimed till they had expiated the unhappy prodigy 
with incredible pains ; and if it appeared that the virgins were 
the occasion of its going out, by carelessness, they were severely 
pnnished, and sometimes with rods." 



300 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

vessels of brass, formed by the conic section of a rec- 
tangled triangle, whose lines from the circumference 
meet in one central point, etc." * The privileges 
which the Vestals enjoyed, and the penalties which 
they were liable to suffer, are thus described by 
Tooke and Plutarch : " For smaller offences these 
virgins were punished with stripes; and sometimes 
the pontifex maximus gave them the discipline naked, 
in some dark place, and under the cover of a veil ; 
but she that broke her vow of chastity was buried 
alive by the Colline gate. In recompense for the 
rigorous discipline to which they were subject, the 
Vestals enjoyed extraordinary privileges and respect. 
When they went abroad, they had the fasces carried 
before them,f and if by accident, they met a person 
led to execution, his life was granted him.f They 
had the most honorable seat at games and festivals, 
and the consuls and magistrates gave way whenever 
they met them. They were permitted to make a 
will during their father's life, and to transact their 
private affairs without a guardian, like the mothers 
of three children, etc." 

* Though it should continue to burn with undiminished bright- 
ness, every year, on the calends of March, the Vestals invariably 
renewed the sacred fire from the solar rays. — G. 

f This distinguished honor, the Triumvirate conferred upon 
them in the year of Rome seven hundred and twelve. — G. 

X Plutarch states that in order that the meeting might end in 
so happy a result in respect to the convict, the Vestals had to make 
oath that it had been really accidental. This statement militates 
against the simple facts of the case, as both the Vestals and the 
priests of Jupiter were universally believed without the solemnity 
of an oath. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 301 



CHAPTER n. 

ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 

Philologists derive the name of Zeus from Dens, 
which, with the hissing sigma as a prefix, has been 
changed to Sdeus, of which Zeus and Theos were 
formed. Zeus, Zan, Zen, are the homogeneous ap- 
pellations under which the iEolians, the Dorians, 
and the Ionians, in the order here enumerated, re- 
spectively recognized and adored the Supreme 
Being. The name Zeus, according to Kanne, de- 
notes father of the air; but it may be more strictly 
defined to be ether, or the glowing, generative air 
itself, and derived from zed, to be warm or hot. 
In the second book of his Georgica, Virgil, the 
prince of the Latin poets, calls Jupiter pater omnipo- 
tens (Ether, and describes the ethereal god as descend- 
ing in fructifying showers into the lap of his longing 
spouse, Juno, or the earth, when the Magnus — the 
great god iEther, uniting himself with the great, 
tellurian body of the goddess, nourishes all her off- 
spring. Considering its absolute importance to the 
existence and well-being of all the organic forms of 
creation, it may be observed that the poets indulged 
the exuberance of their fancy with admirable propriety 
in personifying ether under the name and with the 
attributes of a god.* If, in addition to these facts, 

* Anaxagoras of Clazomenia, the author of the Homoiomerian 
system of philosophy, taught that the elements of all things have 
their source in illimitable ether ; and that there they are gener- 
26 



302 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Zeus is still further synonymous with Theos, de- 
duced from theo, to put, constitute, ordain, Jupiter 
stands before us as the demiurgus and governor of 
the world ; and if thus both zeo and theo unite in 
forming the ample basis of his divine significance, 
he is e pluribus unum, and therefore the greater god.* 
The name Zeus is correlative with Jove or Jupiter ; 
but the popular and the sacerdotal ideas of the god 
differ so materially that the subject requires two 
separate treatises. 



ated or evolved in consequence of the variation of temperature, 
produced by the laws of condensation or rarefaction. This god, 
too, was ethereal, or Zeus-like ; infinite, the supreme, supermun- 
dane Nous ; and the demiurgus of the universe. 

* This god is evidently also called Zeus because he gives life 
to all — tozen. The name Dis, from dia,he likewise "bears; for 
through him every thing exists. It is interesting, and perhaps 
not uninstructive, to trace the cognate terms, or, more properly 
speaking, the same terms varied by national orthography, relating 
to a principal or the supreme God of some of the ancient nations. 
Thus Zeus, Sdeus, Theos, Dis, as we have seen, import deity, or 
god, and all designate the Hellenic Jove or Jupiter. This striking 
similarity and application of deistic names will still further appear 
from the following notice on this subject, in the article on Mythol- 
ogy, contained in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. " If we are not 
mistaken," writes the author, " the appellation Thaautus, Thut, 
Thoth, has been transmitted through the ancient languages down 
to modern times ; and may be traced in the Theos of the Greek, 
the Deus of the Romans, the German Theut or Teut, the French 
Dieu, and the English Deity" 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 303 

PARAGRAPH I. 

The Zeus, or Jupiter of the people. 

The popular creed of the ancient Greeks, cele- 
brates Zeus under the threefold epithet of the Arca- 
dian, the Dodonaean, and the Cretansian ; and the 
vulgar contemplation of the god has, in some in- 
stances, so vitiated his divinity, as to confound it 
■with humanity, leaving it doubtful to the historian 
whether in Zeus he is to record the character and 
exploits of a hero or of a god. Gradual develop- 
ment is a distinguishing trait of the human mind, 
and the various stages of the religious culture of the 
ancients, from the dim, crude notions of barbarians 
to the metaphysical abstractions of the priests and 
philosophers, are strikingly illustrated in the dogmas 
of their national divinities, especially in that of Zeus 
and Athena- Minerva among the Greeks. In the 
picture which is here attempted to be drawn of the 
Arcadian Jupiter, the primitive Pelasgic god is still 
plainly recognized, and his ritual service, strongly 
tinctured and vividly colored by the pastoral sim- 
plicity and rude manners of his votaries, is emi- 
nently significant of the physical features of that 
wild and rugged country : it is the Jupiter Akrios, 
the god of the heights and of the mountains ; the 
tutelar divinity of nomades and hunters. 

At a remote period of antiquity, a colony from 
Egypt or Phoenicia immigrated into that part of the 
Grecian Peloponnesus known as Arcadia — thus 
named, as mythic history informs us, after Areas, 
the son of Jupiter, and introduced among its inhab- 



304 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

itants a higher state of civilization, and more re- 
fined conceptions of religion and of the gods. 
The Arcadian Jupiter was qualified by the epithet 
Lycaus, which has a hieroglyphical origin and im- 
port, and its elucidation is therefore to be sought in 
the Egyptian symbology of the god. Among the 
contemplative people of the Nile, the wolf was one 
of the symbols of light, and as such it appears upon 
the mummy-covers as the psycha-pompus or con- 
ductor of the departed souls, and as the sacred 
emblem both of Osiris, the lord of the dead, and of 
Horus, the fair and resplendent god of light. 

Jupiter Lycaus presents himself in connection 
with a personage who bears a name similar to his 
own — Lycaon, the son of Pelasgus, and king of 
Arcadia, who, as it appears from Pausanias, pol- 
luted the altar of Zeus with the blood of a child, 
and whose merited punishment on account of so 
heinous a deed, was his conversion into a tvolf by 
the justly offended god. From the date of this 
tragic event, a rumor was rife that the eating of 
human flesh inevitably resulted in a like metamor- 
phosis. Wide spread vestiges of a primeval popular 
creed, mixed up with significant names, indicative 
of a close connection with the wolf, and interspersed 
with reminiscences of annual pastoral festivals, fre- 
quently obtrude themselves upon the attention at 
this stage of our investigations of the mythic history 
of Jupiter. " If I may be allowed so to express 
myself," writes Creuzer, " the primary idea of this 
species of religious faith oscillates between the dog 
and the wolf — entre chien et loup; that is, the pas- 
toral anniversary celebrations already noticed, were 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 305 

festivals observed at that season of the year when 
light emerges from darkness, or vernal festivals, 
during which the year was depurated or cleansed of 
its winter pollutions, and the guilt of moral defile- 
ment expiated. They were essentially festivals of 
purgation, upon which the ancient Pelasgians and 
Arcadians as well as the Romans, passed through a 
conversion from darkness to light. In short, in the 
mild light of spring, when the stern influences of 
winter began to abate, the sins of the old year and 
of the past life generally were sought to be obliter- 
ated by atonement. It was then that the wolf, as 
the natural enemy of the flock, was contrasted both 
in symbol and in song, with the dog, its friend and 
protector ; and that the brutal practice of the savage 
and wolflike people, who hesitated not to offer hu- 
man sacrifices, was publicly reprobated as a warning 
to those rude and uncultivated minds, whose animal 
propensities might prompt them to commit so 
glaring an outrage. Zeus could contemplate the 
wolfish practice of immolating human victims with 
abhorrence only ; and hence he and his priests were 
the restrainers of the malignant wolf — the Lukder- 
goi or Luperci* 

This wolf-god, wolf- Osiris, wolf-Horus, the Luko- 
ergos, is now Zeus-Akrios, or, which is the same 
thing, Jupiter is Ammon ; that is, Jupiter clothed in 
the semblance of the ram, is contemplated as occu- 

* The Lupercalian festival of tlie ancient Romans, annually 
observed on the fifteenth of February, at the foot of Mount 
Aventine, and sacred to Pan or Jupiter, had its origin in this cy- 
cle of religious ideas and festive rites. — G. 

26* 



306 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

pying the summits of the mountains and of the 
heavens, and as the god of light and of the herds. 
Considered in this point of view, Jupiter, the more 
developed and perfect Pan, still shares the fate and 
participates the honors of Pan, his plebeian original, 
and is accordingly grouped with him agreeably to 
the laws or the whim of hieroglyphical composition. 
As late as the second century, Pausanius traced the 
existence of hieroglyphical devices, designed to 
symbolize Pan or Zeus-Lycaus. At Megalopolis 
he saw upon a tablet the representations of a num- 
ber of Arcadian nymphs ; as, Nais bearing the in- 
fant Zeus upon her bosom ; Anthracia, who held a 
torch ; and Agno, who bore a water-jug in one hand 
and a vase in the other. Two other nymphs, Ar- 
chiroe and Myrtoessa, figured in the scene, carrying 
vessels in their hands from which flowed streams of 
limpid water. In another temple, the curious histo- 
rian saw the Polycletian Zeus, the Zeus Philios, or 
the friendly, who exactly resembled Bacchus with 
high buskins ; the wine-cup in one hand, and the 
thyrsus, upon which perched an eagle, in the other. 
But for the fact that the bird of heaven constituted 
one of the symbols of the god, Pausanius de- 
clares he should have taken Zeus to be Dionysus 
or Bacchus : a perplexity which must naturally 
spring up in the minds of those who are not ac- 
quainted with the fact that Zeus and Bacchus stood 
related to each other as sire and son ! The nymphian 
tableau just noticed, in which Zeus appears lying in 
the bosom of Nais, Anthracia — the dark, bearing a 
torch before him, while Agno carries after him the 
lustral water, the expressive symbol of the Lycaic 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 307 

initiation and consecration, is of hieroglyphical im- 
port, and shows that beside the rude modes of wor- 
ship once prevalent in the country of the Pelasgi, 
also a purer form of religion existed ; that mysteries 
had been founded there at an early period of its 
history, in which purification by means of fire and 
water was sought to be accomplished ; and that, the 
aspirants of a nobler and holier life being thus pre- 
pared to renew their career under more genial aus- 
pices, a solemn anointing and a new dedication took 
place in the name of the god of the heights — Jupiter 
Amnion, who sent down lightning from heaven ; 
fructified the earth; and was everywhere active, 
under the compound appellations of Zeus-Dionysus, 
Zeus-Philios — the friendly, and Zeus-Meilichios — 
the expiating. Hence we have here a Phoenico- 
Egyptian metathesis, and both Zeus with the ram's 
horns, or Jupiter- Ammon, and Horus or Osiris, are 
reflected from this symbolical design ; and Zeus, 
conformably to the soaring genius of this mythic 
creation, commends himself to our attention as the 
son of the celestial light — Cceli or JEtheris films. 
The idea involved in Zeus, or Jupiter, thus portrayed, 
is that of universal nature resolved into the active, 
cosmic principles in the air, earth, water, light, and 
fire. Besides, the representation of the god, as de- 
lineated and grouped by the nascent, artistic skill of 
the Arcadians, or rather their priests, who, if they did 
not execute the design, at least devised and superin- 
tended it, premises a state of religion anterior to 
Homer; and hence the symbolical tableaux, de- 
scribed by the Greek historian, and here passed in 
review before us — implying incipient, or at any 



308 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

rate, imperfect theological ideas and inferior efforts 
of the hieroglyphical art, betray earlier stages of civil- 
ization, while they display the bright dawn of promise 
in religious development. Two gods, Zeus and 
Dionysus, are still united in one person or recipro- 
cate identity. It was only after Homer and Hesiod 
had defined the rank and described the functions of 
the numerous corps of illustrious inhabitants of 
Olympus, that their personalities stood out in bold 
relief; and then, too, it was that Zeus and Dio- 
nysus — Bacchus, were separated into two distinct 
divinities, and poetically as well as logically con- 
trasted. 

The Dodonaean Jupiter derived his cognomen 
from Dodona, a town of Thesprotia, in Epirus or 
The^ssaly, in the vicinity of which was a celebrated 
oracle that illustrated the name and perpetuated the 
power of the god. We have already noticed the 
account which Herodotus has given of the founda- 
tion and importance of this renowned institution. 

Treating of the intention of Ulysses to consult 
the Dodonaean oracle in respect to the best means 
and most suitable style of his return to Ithaca, 
Homer thus expresses himself in relation to this 
ancient seat of inspired wisdom : — 

" Meantime he voyaged to explore the "will 
Of Jove on high Dodona's holy hill, 
What means might best his safe return avail, 
To come in pomp, or bear a secret sail." 

In the sixteenth book of the Iliad, the blind poet 
gives a more prolix and graphic description of the 
oracular god, his abode, his media of communica- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 309 

tion, and his ministers. The son of Peleus and 
Thetis — Achilles, the bravest of his martial com- 
peers, thus prays in behalf of his friend Patroclus : — 

" O thou supreme ! high-throned all height above ! 
O great Pelasgic, Dodonsean Jove ! 
Who 'midst surrounding frosts and vapors chill, 
Presid'st on bleak Dodona's vocal hill ; 
Whose groves the Selli, race austere ! surround, 
Their feet unwashed, their slumbers on the ground ; 
Who hear, from rustling oaks, thy dark decrees, 
And catch the fates, low whispered in the breeze." * 

From the concluding passage of the immortal 
poet, we learn that the priests of the Dodonaean 
Jupiter were called Selli, from Selloi, 'Elloi, a gentile 
noun, which defines and honors them as the priest 
of the Hellenic people. The manner in which Ju- 
piter communicated his oracles, gives us a key to 
the ideas which the Pelasgic tribes had of the great 
god of nature. As Jupiter gave oracles by means 
of the oak, so the oaken crown was deemed a fit 
ornament to deck the majestic brow of the god, con- 
templated as Polieus, the king of the city. The 
origin of the oaken crown, as a symbol of Jupiter, 
is attributed by Plutarch to ihe admirable qualities 
of the oak. " It is the oak," says he, " which, among 
the wild trees, bears the finest fruit, and which, 
among those that are cultivated, is the strongest. 
Its fruit has been used as food, and the honey-dew 
of its leaves drunk as mead. This sweet secretion 
of the oak was personified under the name of a 
nymph, denominated Melissa. Meat, too, is indi- 



Pope. 



310 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

rectly furnished, in supplying nourishment to rumi- 
nant and other quadrupeds suitable for diet, and in 
yielding birdlime, with which the feathered tribes 
are secured, etc." 

The esculent properties of the fruit of some trees ; 
as, the quercus esculus, and the many useful quali- 
ties of their timber, may well entitle them to the 
rank of trees of life, and to the distinction and 
veneration of suppliers of the first food for the 
simple wants of man. Hence, on account of its 
valuable frugiferous productions, recognized as the 
mast, the beech is generically known, as the fagus, a 
term which is derived from phagein, to eat. There 
was a period in the history of mankind, when the 
fruit of the oak, the neatly incased acorn, constituted 
the chief means of subsistence ; and the Chaonian 
oaks of the Pelasgic age, have been justly immor- 
talized on account of their alimentary virtues. It 
was then, according to Greek authors, that the 
noble oak was cherished and celebrated as the 
mother and nurse of man. For these reasons, Jupi- 
ter, the munificent source of so great a blessing, was 
adored as the benignant foster-father of the Pelasgic 
race, and denominated Phegonaus. In the blissful 
and hallowed oak-tree, according to the puerile no- 
tions of those illiterate people, dwelled the food- 
dispensing god. The ominous rustling of its leaves, 
the mysterious notes of the feathered songsters 
among its branches, announced the presence of the 
divinity to his astonished and admiring votaries, and 
gave hints and encouragement to those whose in- 
terest or curiosity prompted them to consult the 
oracle. For this reason odoriferous fumes of incense 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 311 

were offered to the oracling god, under the Dodo- 
naean oak : a species of devotion most zealously 
observed by the Druids in the oak-groves and forests 
of the ancient Gauls and Britons.. 

Circular dances, the archetype of the waltz, were 
also performed in honor of the marvellous tree, and 
its indwelling deity. At Athens, Jupiter was repre- 
sented as the father of three warders or proctors — 
Anakes, the etymon of which we trace in Anax, a 
king. These illustrious scions of divinity, it is 
affirmed, he begat with the goddess Proserpine. 
The one of them mythology celebrates under the 
name of Eubuleus, the good counsellor; the other, 
under that of Dionysus, an appellation which is" 
derived from Dids and Nussai — Zeus' trees ; and 
the third, under that of Zagreus. In other words, 
Zeus, the fountain of life in the earth, associated 
himself with the fluid element of generation — 
Proserpine-Dione, and begot both the inspiriting 
mists or exhalations emanating from the earth, and 
the diversified and vigorous life of herbs and trees. 
Dionysus, the soft and flowing, is Jupiter in his 
attribute of physical generator, flowing or descending 
in the meteoric phenomena of rain and dew, upon 
the plytonic productions of the earth, especially the 
trees. Or, to be as explicit as an abstruse theme 
will admit, Zens, the life, of the earth and of the 
atmosphere, reveals himself in the earth oracularly, 
as Eubuleus ; upon the earth, as the strength of the 
oak ; and in the fulness of exuberant abundance, as 
Dionysus. The aqueous vapors which, in the form 
of dews and rains, exhale from the surface of water 
and the various organic bodies which exist upon the 



312 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

earth, communicate food, health, and increase to the 
trees, and by this means — personified as Dionysus, 
the son of Jupiter, they afford shelter and protection 
to the tongues of the gods — the feathered choristers 
of the air. Behold the primitive cradle and the 
lisping infancy of the physico-religious creed of the 
ancient Greeks and Romans ! * From the singular 
fact that Jupiter gave oracles by means of the lan- 
guage of birds, he had the honor to be sumamed 
Picus, or the woodpecker, among the Latins. The 
intimate relation which subsisted between Jupiter- 
Dodonaeus and birds and trees, may be learned from 
the circumstance that by a symbolical representation 
of the ancients, the god appears placed between two 
trees, among the branches of which the cooing dove 
has taken up its abode. 

At Ammonium, in Lybia, Jupiter figured under 
the form of a ram, and was known as Jupiter- Am- 
nion, while at Dodona, he assumed the semblance 
of an ox, or taurus. One of the reasons why this 
god imitated the taurian type at the latter place, 
was, that during his early Pelasgic reign, he was so 

* The formation of clouds, the phenomena of rain, and the 
precipitation of moisture, are owing to the variableness of the 
state of heat and electricity of the atmosphere, " in consequence 
of which," writes Professor Kidd in his Bridgewaler Treatise, " a 
given mass of air is incapable of retaining, in solution or suspen- 
sion, the same quantity of moisture which it did before ; and 
hence that moisture is precipitated in the form of dews and fogs ; 
or being previously condensed into accumulated masses of clouds, 
is discharged from those clouds in the form of rain." Thus Jupiter- 
Dionysus still lives, and is still the basis of this branch of physical 
science ; but how different in form is the ancient from the modern 
divinity ! 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 313 

vaguely defined as frequently to be confounded with 
Dionysus, and because his worshippers seem to 
have been partial to this useful animal as a symbol- 
ical medium, as it appeared from the fact that they 
adored their holy river Acheolus as a god with the 
attributes of taurus.* 

In Egypt, we are told, Amun, or Jupiter- Ammon 
— Jupiter the Sandy, begat Osiris, the taurian god; 
that is,, the sun in Taurus is the personified emana- 
tion of the sun, popularly considered as a god, in 
Aries. 

As Moloch, Jupiter came from Phoenicia to Crete ; 
and the Phoenicians, who, according to Herodotus, 
had sold the first Dodonsean priestess to the Epi- 
rians, could introduce there with equal facility a 
Jupiter under the taurian form ; that is, as Moloch, 
or the son of Jupiter Ammon, or as Jupiter- Ammon 
the father, in the symbolical garb of the ram. 

In respect to Jupiter, the primitive faith of the 
Cretans did not differ essentially from that of the 
Arcadians and Dodonaeans, already made the sub- 
ject of investigation. They indulged the flattering 
conviction that their romantically beautiful island, 
with its rugged cliffs and fertile valleys, its hundred 
cities and its god-mountain — Ida, embodied in an 
eminent degree the living, active principles of nature 
which, regarded as the masculine elements of crea- 

* The true or primary reason why the ram, the ox, etc., was 
employed as a symbol of Jupiter-Dionysus, etc., is to be sought 
in the zodiac, or the solar year of the ancients ; and hence Jupi- 
ter in the guise of a ram, is the sun in Aries, and Jupiter in the 
similitude of an ox, or rather bull, is Dionysus or the sun m 
Taurus, etc. 

27 



314 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

tion, they eagerly personified and piously recognized 
under the awe-inspiring name of Zeus.* 

Crete was the primeval seat of Phoenician and 
Egyptian colonists, as is evident, among other 
proofs, from its labyrinths, its grotto-temples, and 
its taurian idols. This combination of Phoenicio- 
Egyptian religious ideas, necessarily resulted in the 
production of a class of deities such as we here 
contemplate. 

The first in the theogonic catalogue that claims 
our attention and elicits our respect, is Uranus — 
heaven, who is succeeded by Chronos — time. The 
latter begat Zeus with Rhea, who is the same as 
Tethys, the flowing, humid element in cosmic pro- 
ductions, and Zeus, in his turn, gave existence to 
Dictynna. This system of physico-theology con- 
tinued to be the predominant one in the greater part 
of Greece, whence it happened that the Greek re- 
ligion was justly regarded as being of Cretansian 
origin ; while the Dodonaean system reigned trium- 
phantly in the north-western portions of the Grecian 
peninsula, and the adjacent Italian States. I add, 
that the radical element of the whole Jupiterian 
religion, was primarily and essentially sabaistic in 
its nature, though in its popular, old Pelasgic as 
well as Cretansian, and Phoenico-Egyptian forms, it 
was mainly the sustaining and lifegiving principle 
of the earth, considered as a cosmic organization. 

* Mythology proclaims the interesting fact that Jupiter was 
educated on Mount Ida, by the Corybantes, or priests of Cybele, 
who on that account, were denominated ldaei. The Cretans also 
boasted that they could show the tomb of their god : Jupiter as 
sun-god in the zodiacal sign of Scorpio ! 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 315 

The recognition and worship of the sun, moon, and 
stars, as divinities, or rather, as the resplendent sym- 
bols of Divine majesty, constituted its broad and 
glittering basis. From time immemorial, Jupiter 
was contemplated by his better informed heathen 
adorers, as the sun with the symbolical attributes 
of taurus, or as Jupiter- Moloch ; and his graceful 
daughter Dictynna, whose name is derived from 
dikein — to emit rays, as the moon, who appears 
now as Britomartis, or the charming virgin, then as 
Pasiphae, or the all-illuminating, and' lastly as Arte- 
mis, or Diana. The Cretansian Dictynna wore a 
verdant crown, wreathed, by her fond admirers, of 
the magic plant dikta?nnon, which ancient authors 
affirm grew only in the island of Crete, now Candia ; 
and this cranial embellishment symbolically distin- 
guished the resplendent daughter of Jove, both as 
Luna, or the goddess of the moon, and as Ilithyia, 
or the divinity presiding over midwifery. For this 
potent plant was deemed to be especially efficacious 
in the labors of childbirth, as well as in all female 
diseases. Hence little children, the gift of the divine 
midwife Dictynna- Ilithyia and of the marvellous dik- 
tamnon, figured among hieroglyphical devices, and 
attested the profound gratitude of her votaries for 
her iEsculapian services. 



PAEAGEAPH H. 

The Zeus, or the Jupiter of the priests. 

The august being whom the ancients, especially 
the Greeks, designated as Pater-Deus — god the 



316 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

father, was gradually developed from the crude no- 
tions and vaguely defined dogmas of faith, a notice 
of which we have communicated in the preceding 
paragraph. In his palmiest days, from the age of 
Alexander the Greek to the ascendency of Chris- 
tianity, this supreme being, still denominated Zeus 
or Jupiter, assumed an influence and a fame among 
mankind, which was coextensive with the almost 
universal monarchies of the Greeks and the Romans. 
The creed of the heathens relating to their Pater- 
Deus, is to be ascertained by an investigation of 
their literary and plastic productions. According to 
the epic poet Ennius, the firmament was called Ju- 
piter : — 

" Adspice hoc sublime candens, quern invocant Jovem : " 

behold this shining firmament on high! they in- 
voke it as Jupiter. A designation of the god like 
this, evidently implies both a synecdoche, by which a 
part is taken for the whole, and a metonymy, in 
which the effect is put for the cause. In the same 
hyperbolical style, Horace, in his first Ode, impiously 
stigmatizes the god as the frigid Jove ; an epithet 
which is borrowed from Hibernice, one of the cogno- 
mens of this deity, signifying his dominion during 
the winter season. The two remaining seasons of 
the ancient year, spring and summer, were respec- 
tively denominated the vernal and the sestival Ju- 
piter. With the same metaphorical inaccuracy, the 
poet last quoted describes Jupiter as mains, in allu- 
sion to his boreal manifestations in nature; while 
Virgil, in the second book of his Georgica, availing 
himself of the license common to his profession, 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 317 

makes this god and the air or weather, considered as 
detrimental to the ripe grapes, synonymous : — 

" Et jam maturis nietuerjdus Jupiter uvis." 

The sum of all these indefinite figurative expres- 
sions resolves itself into the following thesis: The 
ancients acknowledged Jupiter as the god of the 
three seasons, which in that age embraced the an- 
nual cycle of time, and hesitated not to personify 
these seasons, each one of which they designated as 
Jupiter, while at the same time, in his totality, he 
"was the god of the year ; and they accordingly 
adored him as the grand embodiment of all the me- 
teorological and astronomical phenomena of the 
heavens. Thus he was called Lucetius by the people 
of Campania, and Diespiter by the Latins, "be- 
cause," says Tooke, " he cheers and comforts us 
with the light of day, as much as with life itself, or 
because he was believed to be the father of light." 
Pluvius, too, was one of his appellations, not because 
he and rain implied the same thing, but because he 
gives rain. The surname of Capitolinus conferred 
upon the god, was surely never meant to convey the 
idea that the Romans worshipped the hill bearing 
that name as Jupiter, but the deity to whom the 
temple, situated upon that renowned eminence, was 
dedicated. When, on a certain occasion, this god 
had brought the fleeing, panic-struck Romans - to a 
stand, and was therefore honored with the title of 
Stator, he and the reassured warriors could not be 
contemplated as one, even by the indulgence of the 
most extravagant figure of speech, but as two dis- 
tinct forms of existence, though there had been a 
27* 



318 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

time, and among the vulgar that time might still 
exist to some extent, when the gods and the various 
parts of creation were deemed to be synonymous.. 
Jupiter had the honor to be glorified by the earliest 
efforts of sculpture, and Pausan'ias informs us that 
at Larissa there was an image of the god which was 
distinguished by three eyes, two in the usual posi- 
tion, and one in the forehead. The presumption is, 
that it denoted the Jupiter Patroos of Priamus, the 
last king of Troy : the paternal or ancestral god, who 
still graciously regards the descendants of his an- 
cient votaries, and to whom he will extend his pro- 
tective care to remotest time. When the trophy of 
the Trojan conquest was divided, this primitive 
specimen of the iconic art fell to the lot of Sthene- 
lus, the son of Capaneus, who conveyed it to the 
above-mentioned Thessalian city. It is presumed 
that the three visual organs of the god denoted his 
three principal relations to the universe, defined as 
the supernal, the subterranean, and the maritimal, 
and deistically distinguished as Jupiter the supreme 
god, in his celestial, Plutonian, and Neptunian at- 
tributes and manifestations. In a similar style, the 
Platonic philosopher Proclus speaks of a demiurgic 
trias of this god, under the name of three persons, 
the first of whom was designated as Zeus par excel- 
lence, who was the same as Zeus the father; the 
second, as Zeus Poseidon — the power or duamis ; 
and the third as* Pluto — the spirit, or nous. This 
Hellenic trinity dwindled into oblivion after the art 
of sculpture among the Greeks had succeeded, 
through the creative genius of Phidias, to produce 
the Olympian Jupiter, as the omnipotent, pan-Hel- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 319 

lenic King, when the god had no longer an equal or 
a divided divinity, but was emphatically the God of 
gods, as well as the sole source of universal being. 
Another statue of Zeus, at Olympia, the masterly 
production of the chisel of Aristonus of iEgina, pre- 
sented by the Metapontines as a votive offering to the 
god, serves still further to illustrate the character and 
determine the functions of the Pater-Deus. This 
Aristonic Jupiter is represented with the face averted 
towards the east, with an eagle perched upon one 
hand, and lightning grasped in the other, while a 
garland of vernal flowers decorated the awful brow 
of the supreme majesty : it is, as Juvenal often calls 
him, the Jupiter Vermis ; and this fact is corrobora- 
tive of the position already advanced, that the Zeus 
Patroos at Larissa, endowed with the supernumerary 
eye, imported the three seasons of the year, as well 
as the three cosmic relations before noticed. Such 
were some of the earlier attempts of the complicated 
and abstruse science of symbology, still in a state 
of development, to give expression to religious im- 
pressions, and to represent under suitable forms, the 
innate or empirical conviction of the existence and 
providence of a Supreme Being. They originated 
in an age when polytheism had not yet been reduced 
into a regular and harmonious system under the 
magic effusions of poetic genius, or the progressive 
development of plastic perfection. It is to be deeply 
regretted that so few of the hymns and prayers, 
which once resounded in the presence of the still 
somewhat .uncouth Pelasgic images of the Pater- 
Deus, have survived the corrosion of time, or the 
destructive Vandalism of barbaric hordes, as they 



320 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

would furnish the means of a most correct apprecia- 
tion of the true character of the Zeus of the more 
intelligent and philosophic portion of the heathen 
world. As the case~ now stands, we can argue only- 
according to the inferences deduced from uncon- 
nected fragments of ancient literature. A remark- 
able specimen of a hymnic relic has been preserved 
through the foresight or curiosity of Philostratus. 
It claims the ancient minstrel Pamphos for its au- 
thor, and translated into prose, runs thus : " Most 
glorious Zeus, greatest of the gods, wrapped in the 
ordure of sheep, horses, and mules ! " A paean 
qualified by antitheses as glaring as these, and ap- 
parently so contradictory and absurd, is well calcu- 
lated to fill the mind of the uninitiated into the 
mysteries of the heathen religion, with mingled feel- 
ings of surprise and disgust. With the symbologist, 
versed in the phraseology, and acquainted with the 
emblematic devices of the hieroglyphical system of 
theology, the case is very different. In the preceding 
devout yet seemingly extravagant strains of psalmody, 
the supreme god Zeus figures before us in the humble 
capacity of the scarabceus pillulai'ius, in French the 
fouille-merde, wallowing in the excrementitious mat- 
ter of various animals. An idea strikingly consonant 
to the creed of the ancient Egyptians, according to 
which they believed this species of scaraba3us to be 
procured from the ordure, in which it delights to 
revel ; and hence this insect was selected as a sacred 
and most significant symbol of life and palingenisia.* 

" * The scarabceus pillvlarius is noted for its singular instinct, 
which directs it to lay its eggs into the dung of animals, especially 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 321 

In his character of scarabseus, or, more properly speak- 
ing, under the symbol of the scarabasus, Jupiter is 
therefore nothing less than the fructifying and nour- 
ishing power — to zoogonoun, of the universe. Zeus 
was likewise qualified by the epithet Apomuios, be- 
cause he had the head of a fly, which Schlichtegroll 
thinks was meant for the bee, the symbol of primeval 
food; while others, who are of opinion that a fly 
was as clearly signified as it was expressed in the 
symbol, consider the insect-headed god to be the 
same as the Beelzebub of the Ekronites, noticed in 
the Old Testament : the god of the flies, or rather 
the fly-re strainer and protector against these often 
very annoying and sometimes destructive insects.* 



into that of neat-cattle, and for rolling them up into pellets formed 
of this feculent matter, when they are hatched by the influence of 
the sun ; a mode of incubation or reproduction which escaped the* 
scrutiny of the ancients, and thus corruption was regarded as the 
immediate source of organic existence. The scarabaeus was im- 
pictured upon the obelisks and sarcophagi of the Egpytians, and 
as the emblem of life and palingenisia, it was placed at the root 
of the nose of the embalmed mummy. 

* The Jews stigmatized Beelzebub as the prince of the devils, 
to which notion our Saviour accommodated himself in his inter- 
course with them, without, it is presumed, necessarily indorsing it 
as true. Belus, Bel, Beel, Baal, etc., are all cognate terms, and 
denote the sun considered as a god. Zebub signifies a fly, and 
hence Beelzebub, Baalzebub, etc., mean fly-god, the sun. In vain 
will heathen antiquities be searched to find proof that Bel, Baal, 
etc., and Satan or the devil, are the same ! The etymological 
analyses given of Beelzebub by the distinguished lexicographer, 
Parkhurst, deserves a brief attention. " Baalzebub," says he, is 
mentioned 2 Kings, i. 2, 3, 16, as the Aleim, or God of the Philis- 
tines of Ekron. He appears by that history to have been one of 
their medical idols ; and as Baal denotes the sun, so the attribute 



322 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

In introducing a number of Orphic hymns into 
his Eclogues, Stobaeus, a Greek writer who nourished 
in the fifth century, has insured immortality to at 
least one fragment of sacred poetry, the strains of 
which are at once lofty and profound : " Zeus is the 
first and the last ; the head and the extremities : 
from him have proceeded all things. He became 
man and pure virgin — in the language of the an- 
cients, the masculine and feminine agents of crea- 
tion ; is the prop of earth and heaven ; the soul of 
all things ; and the principle of mobility in fire. He 
is the sun and the moon ; the fountain of the ocean ; 
the demiurgus that formed the universe ; one pow- 
er ; one god ; the mighty creator and governor of 
the world. Every thing, fire, water, earth, ether, 
night, the heavens, Metis,* the primeval architec- 



zebub seems to import his power in causing water to gush out of 
the earth, and in promoting the fluidity and due discharge of the 
juices and blood in vegetables, animals, and men, and thereby con- 
tinuing or restoring their health and vigor. And as flies, from the 
manner of their issuing from their holes, were no improper em- 
blems of fluids gushing forth, hence the epithet zebub makes it 
probable that a fly was part of the imagery of the Baal at Ek- 
ron, or that a fly accompanied the bull or other image, as we see 
in many instances produced by Montfaucon, etc." Having in- 
formed us that Jupiter, under the name of Belus or Bel, had ulti- 
mately reigned among the Babylonians and Assyrians, as the 
first of all the gods, Tooke adds : " In different places and lan- 
guages, he was afterwards called Beel, Baal, Beelphegor, Beel- 
zebub, and Belzemen." 

* Metis was one of the Oceanides, and first wife of Jupiter : 
this divine marriage was the union of fire and water ; the active 
principle of creation with its passive element — the prima materia 
of all things. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 323 

tress, the beautiful Eros, Cupid, or the god of love, 
all is included within the vast dimensions of his 
glorious body." This vivid picture of Zeus, just 
shaded enough by the artist to relieve its fresh 
colors, and point out its lofty, vigorous style, reveals 
the god to us as the supreme, divine unity, under 
the sensible image of a corporeal totality, in a hu- 
man-like, mundane body : the universe has assumed 
the form of man ! 

At a later period, when the Greeks had made 
some progress in dialectic science, they no longer 
manifested a willingness blindly to acquiesce in 
religious dogmas, however true they might be, un- 
supported by the evidence of reason, or rendered 
probable by experience and observation, and boldly 
demanded a logical definition of the existence and 
attributes of the Pater-Deus, and the proof of the 
nature and mode of his divine activity according to 
the principles of induction. Alas ! too little must 
be yielded, where too much is demanded ! The first 
who claimed to be heard upon this subject, were 
Thales and Anaxagoras, who may be regarded as 
the illustrious founders of the most ancient of the 
Ionic schools, which, however, still retained a sacer- 
dotal character, and gave expression to its meta- 
physical researches in lyric strains and sacred im- 
agery. 

In prose, Pherecydes and Pythagoras led the van 
in doctrinal theology. The former of these philoso- 
phers understood by Zeus — Zen, ether ; that is, the 
external, highest, empyrean heaven, inclosing the 
supernal world; or the light as the concentrated 



324 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

primordial element* This Pherecydian doctrine is 
cognate to the Persian of Mithras, the Egyptian of 
Horus, and the Hindoo of Brahma, and is derived 
from the same prolific and primitive source. The 
theory of two principles, or the dogma of good and 
evil, advanced by Pythagoras, the former under the 
name of Zeus, the nous, the one or monas — the 
good ; and the latter under that of duas, or duality, 
as the materiate of existence and the source of evil, 
has a similar origin. Consulting the apathic and 
inflexible stoics on this interesting subject, we find 
that the Zeus of Chrysippus was the fountain and 
essence of all forms and modes of existence. Zeus 
is the appellation of the god — to zen, because he 
gives life to all, and Dis, from dia, because through 
him are all things. As to the divine Plato, he por- 
trays this divinity in brief but forcible language as 
the creator and governor of the world. 

According to Stobaeus, Porphyrins taught, in the 
spirit and style of the old Orphic theology, " that Zeus 
was the whole world ; the animal of animals — zodn 
ek zodn; the god of gods. Moreover, that he was 
nous — the intelligence, through which he produced 
all things ;* for it was by means of ideas that he 
originated and formed every part of the universe/' 
"What Chronos, or Cronos, is potenlia, in respect to 
the universe, this Porphyrian Zeus is actu; that is, 
Zeus is the actualized creative power of Chronos, 



* Zeus, it will be perceived here, is the male element, power, 
or principle of creation. Chthonia — the earth; Metis — the 
water, etc., are his consorts : chemical affinity, electrical attraction 
and repulsion, are the mighty agents in cosmic organization. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 325 

and hence he has very properly been described as 
Zeus-Chronos. " The father of Zeus," writes Kaiser, 
" was denned as time, or Chronos, according to a 
more recent system of theogony, because he reigned 
prior to his great son, though as regards rank, he is 
inferior to him. But the fact that Zeus, the supreme 
deity, is not the first god in the order of time, does 
not affect his supremacy." I add that Zeus, consid- 
ered as demiurgus and governor of the world, is 
Chronos, or time realized in cosmos. In Zeus all 
order of nature gravitates as in its cosmic centre. 
Through him, the vast body of nature, the cosmic 
god-man, the various parts of creation exist, and 
attain to unity. Viewed in this comprehensive 
light, especially as the nous, the understanding or 
intelligence, we are able to comprehend the nature 
and meaning of the goddess Athena, contemplated 
as the ever chaste virgin under the name of Minerva, 
born from the head of the god: she is the lovely 
personification of the wisdom of her celestial sire, 
and of the centralization of the unity of cosmic plu- 
rality in him. 

With Juno, Zeus begat Mars, but the martial 
daring of this god, based upon mere brute force, 
could accomplish nothing that was worthy of the 
scion of so exalted a parentage, without the control- 
ling and mediative wisdom of Minerva. With 
Semele, the impersonation of the earth, Zeus, the 
ether, fire, and lightning, procreated Dionysus : the 
plurality of existence, or nature considered in its 
cosmic elements and diversified forms. Semele, the 
fragile goddess, unable to bear the full generative 
influences of her puissant spouse, died, and entered 

28 



326 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

into the bleak abode of night : the organic life of the 
earth stagnates and dies after the autumnal equinox ! 
The unmatured son, removed from the senescent 
womb of the defunct mother, is carefully concealed 
by the anxious father, in one of his hips; that is, 
the seeds and properties of organic existence are 
preserved by the god of nature till Semele, the 
earth, shall again revive at the coming spring.* 

According to the Cretansian theogony, Zeus could 
boast the paternity of three celebrated daughters, 
known in poetry and the fine arts as the Horce, 
whom he begat with Themis — the primordial law. 
The first was named Dike — justice; the second, 
JEhtnomia — the equal and harmonious execution of 
justice; and 4 the third, Eirene, or the peace which 
succeeds the close of a military campaign at the 
end of summer. In view of this last daughter, or 
the Eirenic attribute of the god, he is Moiragetes, or 
supreme controller of fate. These Horse, fair openers 
of the gates of heaven and of Olympus, have also a 
calendaric import, and denote the three seasons of 
the ancient year. Ethically interpreted, they are the 
antitheses of the untoward, irregular powers of na- 
ture, the enemies of all order — the Titans; for they 
are the harmonious, equable, nexual striving of na- 



* The hip in which the embryo-life of Dionysus was secured, 
is synonymous with loin, a term used among the Hebrews to ex- 
press the seat of the generative principle, because, it may be pre- 
sumed, its efflux is most sensibly felt in that region. In the thirty- 
fifth chapter of Genesis, God announces to Jacob that kings 
should come out of his loins; and in the forty-sixth chapter of the 
same book, it is said, " All the souls which came with Jacob into 
Egypt, which came out of his loins, etc., were threescore and six.'* 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 327 

ture : the founders of order ; the promoters of agra- 
rian culture ; and the patrons of civilization. 

The ancient Carians conferred the sturdy cogno- 
men Labrandeus upon Zeus ; a title which recog- 
nizes a martial divinity in its bearer, as it is derived 
from labrus — the war-axe. The reason for the ex- 
istence of a Labrandean Zeus, has already been 
hinted at in the antagonism of the fair Horse to the 
repulsive Titans, and may be still further discovered 
in the fact that the winter season was regarded by 
the ancients as an unpropitious manifestation of 
nature ; as a belligerent demon, armed with fifty 
heads and a hundred hands ; and personified under 
the appellation of Briareus, whom the god, in his 
capacity of Jupiter- Vernus, subdued in the spring, 
and thus enabled mankind to prosecute the profes- 
sion of arms, or to pursue the more genial avoca- 
tions of domestic industry. For Jupiter was the 
mighty opener of the portals of the ancient year, 
which, in accordance with nature, began in the 
spring ; and as the vernal unroller of annual time, 
he summoned, as his votaries were prone to believe, 
his warlike people, and conducted them either to the 
blessings of peace and of plenty at home, or to the 
perils and the glory of the battle-field abroad. In all 
these relations, Jupiter was the good deity wrestling 
with moral and physical evil. Moreover, as Zeus- 
Labrandeus, he was virtually the same as Zeus akrios 
and keraunios, who, throned on high, from whence 
he hurled forth thunder and lightning ; rent the 
clouds with his fiery bolts ; * and descended in irre- 

* According to the personifying tendency of mythic theology, 



328 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

sistible torrents of rain, or in mild, gentle, vernal 
showers, which dissolved and bore down with them 
the reluctant snows of the mountains, while they 
stimulated and fructified the still dormant yet 
awaking earth, revealing himself as Zeus Kataibates, 
and the Jupiter pluvius : the god that comes down 
from heaven, and that brings rain. In these meteor- 
ological phenomena, Zeus was metaphorically the 
mild, genial air or atmosphere, which generates fer- 
tility in the earth ; promotes the growth and design 
of its productions ; and secures fruitful seasons and 
abundant harvests to mortals. Hence the Cre- 
tans, who adored the Pater-Deus as the benefi- 
cent source of every blessing, conferred upon him 
those significant epithets above enumerated, and 
which were so admirably adapted both to illustrate 

dark, scowling, threatening clouds, borne, as the poets fancied, 
upon their flying storm-steeds ; exhaling the fleecy mist from 
their foaming sides ; shaking frost, snow, or hail from their froth- 
ing mouths or flowing manes, were metamorphosed into giants 
by the name of Titans, rising up against heaven, prepared to 
scale and sack the burnished and sparkling seat of empire of Ju- 
piter, the father of gods and men, who, to prevent so calamitous 
an event, and to preserve that balance of power in the universe 
without which order and harmony must give place to anarchy 
and confusion, incased in a panoply of empyrean light and fire; 
armed with vivid lightning and the three-forked thunderbolt ; 
and urging his electric coursers athwart the celestial vault : his 
eyes flashing, and his lips uttering the deep, hollow, awful peals 
of impending doom ; he rushes upon the insolent foe, defeats and 
hurls him to the earth ! Nevertheless, these Titan forces, led on 
by Briareus, are also ministrant to Jove, who raises the storm; 
mingles witli the wind; and is emphatically the cloud-compeller : — 

" Then Jove from Ida's top his horrors spreads ; 
The clouds burst dreadful o'er the Grecian heads." 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 329 

his goodness, and to magnify his name. As to his 
bearing towards the enemies of his votaries and fa- 
vorites, he proved himself to be a very different god 
from what we have just described him to be, assum- 
ing a most appalling character : he was now Zeus- 
Vindex — the defender, and Jupiter- Ultor — the aven- 
ger, who sent panic terror into the ranks of the 
opposing foes, crushing them to the earth in the 
potency of his wrath and the might of his power ; 
thus signally interposing in behalf of his people, to 
whom also he is the mild, and the Phuxios, who 
forces the presumptuous enemy who refuses to sub- 
mit, to flee. Jupiter-Z^erator was likewise one of 
the distinguishing appellations of the god, inasmuch 
as he delivered from political bondage the nations 
who sighed under the yoke of foreign oppression. 
In a higher, ethical sense, the liberating or eleu- 
therion god, sets at liberty the body-imprisoned 
souls, and conducts them back from the reverses 
and trials of this life into their true father-land and 
primeval home. Basileus and Pater are titles by 
which Zeus used to be addressed in hymns and 
liturgic formulas, and they present the god to our 
contemplation in the new and interesting light as 
the ideal centre of the extensive cycle of social life. 
The idea of Zeus as father and king, developed it- 
self organically from that of the father and head of 
the human family, and the patriarchal government 
was the revered type after which the administration 
of the Pater-Deus was naturally presumed to be 
conducted. As Burgrave and Pretor of the city, the 
god was designated by the titles of Polieus and Po- 
liouchos. In short, he was the normal, hallowed 
J 28* 



330 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

standard of all the functions and duties of the 
social relations, devised by the wisdom or dictated 
by the piety of mankind, and sanctioned by the in- 
delible seal of time. Cities constituted the first 
considerable commonwealth of the human race, and 
even at the present day, a Pekin, a Paris, or a Lon- 
don, so completely embodies the organic vitality of 
the State, that its fate involves that of the nation, 
whose life-blood circulates within its capitoline 
limits. It was in consequence of facts like these, 
that in addition to his other city titles, Zeus also 
bore that of Dikaspolos, because he was the primary 
source and supreme administrator of all laws, from 
their incipient manifestations at the cradle to their 
complete unfolding and mature vigor in the senate- 
chamber or the curule chair ; and from the humble 
hearth-stone to the towering throne of regal state. 
At Athens, the ancient school of the European 
world, and other cities, he had altars in the market- 
place, and responded to the name of Ag-oraios, be- 
cause he guarded the faith and integrity of the people 
who met there for the purpose of traffic, or the trans- 
action of civil affairs. At the transfer of real estate, 
both parties were obliged solemnly to swear that 
they would deal equitably towards each other. The 
oath, when taken in the name of Zeus — Apollo was 
also frequently invoked upon such occasions — was 
accompanied by an offering of incense — thumiama, 
to him as the god of the market. It was only after 
this impressive formality had been duly observed, 
that the officiating magistrate was permitted to 
make an entry of the sale. Senators and councillors 
of State were required, in order properly to discharge 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 331 

their important duties, to prefer their prayers to 
Minerva and to Jupiter-Boulaios, the adviser. The 
philosophers, whose wisdom had not yet taught 
them the pernicious lessons to ignore the claims of 
piety, regarded Zeus as the summum bonum, or pri- 
mary and sole source of all that is great and good in 
the universe, and especially as the origin and essence 
of all law and justice. They were firmly persuaded 
that through him alone man could attain to a just 
appreciation of what is good and evil, or right and 
wrong. 

According to Thucydides and other authors, among 
other qualifications required of an Athenian magis- 
trate before he could be permitted to serve in a pub- 
lic capacity, were these : that he should be able to 
furnish satisfactory testimonials that he could trace 
his Athenian pedigree, on the father and mother's 
side, at least to the third generation, and that he had 
erected altars to Zeus-Patrous and Zeus-Herceus ; * 
the rights and privileges of Athenian citizenship 
depended absolutely upon the knowledge and the 
worship of the god under these attributes. Besides, 
the conjugal relation of Zeus and Juno, or Hera, is 
the fair and chaste model after which all connubial 
connections among mankind are to be observed. It 
is a holy marriage — ieros gamos, an immaculate 
consecration ; and therefore Juno is qualified by the 
honorable epithet Teleia, or perfect, a distinction 
which implies that she is united to her spouse by a 
sacrament or solemn dedication. She is further de- 

* Herceus is derived from erkos, the court or area of a dwel- 
ling : and Patrous denotes paternal — the god of the ancestors. 



332 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

nominated Gamelios or Pronuba^ the bridemaid or 
bridal suitress. It was in a grotto on Mount Cithae- 
ron where, for the first time and in secret, Jupiter pre- 
sumed to embrace the lovely goddess ; and Juno, on 
account of the locality in which the incident took 
place, was called Muchia, but in allusion to the time, 
Nuchia, because it happened in the night : Juno the 
nocturnal is accordingly the same as Latona, or 
night. In other words, this goddess, under the name 
of Juno, is the earth, but under that of Latona, the 
night, which is, however, only another term for the 
shadow of the earth. 

Guided by this divine example, the end of the 
marital institution was defined to be ep aroto paidon 
g-nesion — the aration or cultivation of genuine off- 
spring: children born in holy wedlock, and under 
the august sanction of the immortal gods, in contra- 
distinction to illicit and meretricious productions. 
In the extensive nomenclature appropriated to Zeus, 
the appellation Orkios also occurs, implying that he 
is the overseer and executor of oaths, and as such 
he was represented in the senate chamber at Olym- 
pia, bearing a thunderbolt in each hand, ready to 
smite to the earth the impious wretch who should 
dare to contract the flagrant guilt of perjury. With- 
out the devout recognition of father Zeus, the tenure 
of life and property in society was justly supposed 
to rest upon an insecure basis ; without hirn, 
there was no holy tie in the domestic or the 
municipal relations of mankind; no true or lasting 
blessings ; no rational or well-founded hope. - He 
was universally acknowledged by his artless and 
profoundly religious votaries, to be the omnipresent 



IN IXS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 333 

and all-controlling Penate — the household god, and 
divine housekeeper, who therefore claimed to be 
contemplated and adored as such both in families 
and in commonwealths. The childlike faith of the 
ancient Greeks taught them to believe that all the 
domiciliary relations and interests of the human 
race were under the keen supervision and gracious 
guardianship of the great and exalted Jupiter ; that 
they were consequently the sacred fountains from 
which emanates all that is great or good, noble or 
precious, in human life; and that while they con- 
tinued to be god-sustained and god-hallowed, human 
happiness should endure unimpaired, and flourish in 
perennial vigor. Hence Zeus-Herceus had an altar 
which bore his image and stood at the outer gate, 
opening into the court or erkos of the dwelling, sur- 
rounded by hedge or wall. Here, where was emphati- 
cally holy ground, the god kept watch and ward over 
the rights and duties of the family ; here the inmates 
of the house assembled to worship their tutelar god 
under the endearing and encouraging name of Zeus- 
Herceus ; and here piety, warmed and fanned by the 
sacred altar-fires of the domestic hearth, delighted to 
iterate and proclaim its undying faith in him as the 
Propator — the first father, and the sacred prototype 
of all fathers of all time. A part of an address, 
contained in the eighth book of Pope's Iliad, and 
delivered by Jupiter before the assembled deities on 
Mount Olympus, in which the thunder er threatens 
them with the dire pains of Tartarus in case they 
should presume to assist either party engaged in the 
Trojan contest, and which must have been emi- 
nently calculated to impress that splendid audience 



334 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

with a profound sense of the surpassing power and 
infinite greatness of the immortal orator, will con- 
clude our observations upon the god, who grasps 
the thunder in his hands : * — 

" Let him who tempts me, dread those dire abodes ; 
And know, th' Almighty is the god of gods. 
League all your forces then, ye powers above, 
Join all, and try th' omnipotence of Jove ; 
Let down our golden everlasting chain, 
Whose strong embrace holds Heaven, and earth, and main : 
Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth, 
To drag, by this, the thunderer down to earth : 
Ye strive in vain ! If I but stretch this hand, 
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land ; 
I fix the chain to great Olympus' height, 
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight ! 
For such I reign, unbounded and above ; 
And such are men, and gods, compared to Jove. 

* The influence which climate exercises upon the faith of na- 
tions, is strikingly illustrated in the fact that while Greece, Italy, 
Scandinavia, etc., have had their Zeus, Jupiter, and Thor, be- 
cause they had the electrical phenomena of thunder and light- 
ning, the bright, cloudless sky of Egypt never enriched and in- 
vigorated the mythology of the people of the Nile with the stern 
realities and refulgent majesty of a god of thunder. 



DIVISION III. 



THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 

The quadrennial festival, immortalized under the 
name of the Olympia, or the Olympic games, re- 
ceived its appellation either from the town of Olym- 
pia, in Elis, at which it was celebrated, or from Ju- 
piter Olympius, to whom it was dedicated. Mythic 
history ascribes the origin of the Olympic games to 
Hercules and Pelops, and refers to the victory ob- 
tained by the former over Augias, about twelve cen- 
turies prior to the Christian era, as the date of their 
introduction into Greece. How the name and labors 
of that god, and the majesty of t^is king, came to 
be thus genetically associated with this pan-Hellenic 
festival, will be explained in the sequel. After these 
games had been observed for some time, they were 
neglected, and Ephitus, aided by Lycurgus, the re- 
nowned Spartan legislator, had the honor to revive 
them. Once more, however, they were destined to 
fall into desuetude, and for the last time, they were 
reinstituted by Coroebus, in the year before Christ 
seven hundred and seventy-six.* " A tradition pre- 

* Gillies is of opinion that Coroebus had no hand in the insti- 
tution of the Olympic games, and that his name is mentioned in 

(335) 



836 THE HEATHEN EELIGION 

vailed," writes Gillies, " that even before the Dorian 
conquest, the fruitful and picturesque banks of the 
Alpheus, in the province of Elis, or Eleia, had been 
consecrated to Jupiter. It is certain that athletic 
sports, similar to those described by Homer at the 
funeral of Patroclus, had been on many occasions 
exhibited in Elis, by assembled chiefs, with more 
than ordinary solemnity. The Dorian conquerors 
are said to have renewed the consecration of that 
delightful province. But the wars which early pre- 
vailed between them and the Athenians, and the 
jealousies and hostilities which afterwards broke out 
among themselves, totally interrupted the religious 
ceremonies and exhibitions with which they had 
been accustomed to honor their common gods and 
heroes. Amidst the calamities which afflicted or 
threatened the Peloponnesus, Iphitus, a descendant 
of Oxylus, to whom the province of Eleia had fallen 
in the general partition of the peninsula, applied to 
the Delphic oracle. The priests of Apollo, ever dis- 
posed to favor t^e views of kings and legislators, 
answered agreeably to his wish, that the festivals 
anciently celebrated, at Olympia, on the Alpheus, 
must be renewed, and an armistice proclaimed for 
such States as were willing to partake of them, and 
desirous to avert the vengeance of heaven. Forti- 
fied by this authority, and assisted by the advice of 
Lycurgus, Iphitus took measures, not only for re- 
storing the Olympic solemnity, but for rendering it 



connection with that of Ephitus, because he icon in the foot-race, 
when the latter, at the period designated in the text, revived these 
games. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 337 

perpetual. The injunction of the oracle was speed- 
ily diffused through the remotest parts of Greece, by 
the numerous votaries who frequented the sacred 
shrine. The armistice was proclaimed in Pelopon- 
nesus, and preparations were made in Eleia for ex- 
hibiting shows and performing sacrifices. In the 
heroic ages, feats of bodily strength and address 
were destined to the honor of deceased warriors ; * 
hymns and sacrifices were reserved for the gods. 
But the flexible texture of Grecian superstition, 
easily confounding the expressions of respectful 
gratitude and pious veneration, enabled Iphitus to 
unite both in his new institution. 

The festival, which lasted five days, began and 
ended with a sacrifice to Olympian Jove % The in- 
termediate time was chiefly filled up by the gym- 
nastic exercises, in which all freemen of Grecian 
extraction were invited to contend, provided they 
had been born in lawful wedlock, and had lived 
untainted by any infamous, immoral stain. The 
preparation for this part of the entertainment was 
made in the gymnasium of Elis, a spacious edifice, 
surrounded by a double range of pillars, with an 
open area in the middle. Adjoining were various 
apartments, containing baths and other conveniences 
for the combatants. The neighboring country was 
gradually adorned with porticos, shady walks and 
groves, interspersed with seats and benches, the 
whole originally destined to relieve the fatigues and 

* This assertion of the historian is not unqualifiedly true, at 
least not in its application to the present article, as the sequel 
will show. 

29 



338 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

anxiety of the candidates for Olympic fame ; and 
frequented, in later times, by sophists and philoso- 
phers, who were fond to contemplate wisdom, and 
communicate knowledge, in those delightful retreats. 

The order of the athletic exercises or combats, 
was established _by Lycurgus, and corresponded 
almost exactly to that described by Homer, in the 
twenty -third book of the Iliad, and the eighth of the 
Odyssey. Iphitus, we are told, appointed the other 
ceremonies and entertainments ; settled the regular 
return of the festival at the end of every fourth year, 
in the month of July ; and gave to the whole solem- 
nity that form and arrangement, which it preserved 
with little variation, above a thousand years; a 
period exceeding the duration of the most famous 
ldngdoms and republics of antiquity." 

The care and superintendence of the games were 
intrusted to the people of Elis till they were ex- 
cluded by the Pisasans, after the destruction of Pisa, 
in the year preceding the birth of Christ, three hun- 
dred and sixty-four. The presidents of the games 
were obliged solemnly to swear, that they would act 
impartially, and not take any bribes, or discover why 
they rejected some of the combatants. They gen- 
erally sat naked, and, according to some authors, 
held before them the crown which was prepared for 
the conqueror, who was likewise in a state of nu- 
dity. Certain officers called Alutai, were appointed 
to keep order and enforce propriety of behavior 
during the celebration. Though the rule was some- 
times neglected, ordinarily women were not per- 
mitted to appear amid the scenes of the Olympic 
festival. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 339 

The preparations for the athletic sports were 
great, and demanded a long season of probation. 
No person was allowed to enter the lists if he had 
not regularly exercised himself ten months before 
the celebration, at the public gymnasium of Elis, 
already mentioned. The wrestlers were appointed 
by lot. The gymnastic exercises, exhibited in these 
games, and which consisted in running, leaping, 
wrestling, boxing, and the throwing of the quoit, 
collectively bore the name of Pentathlon or Quin- 
quertium. The leapers performed to the sound of 
flutes playing Pythian airs. " These gymnastic ex- 
ercises," writes Smith, in his Festivals, Games, and 
Amusements, " being the most ancient, took prece- 
dence of the horse and chariot-races, though the 
competitors in the latter were, generally speaking, 
men of higher rank and consideration than the 
athletse, and the spectacle was much more pompous 
and magnificent." 

Beside the gymnastic exercises, and the horse and 
chariot-races, poetry, eloquence, and the fine arts, 
also entered the lists for Olympic renown, enhancing 
the interest of the occasion, and conferring glory 
upon talent. 

A closer insight into the nature of the ceremonies 
and modes of proceeding observed at this celebrated 
festival, must necessarily be interesting, and I there- 
fore add the following communication upon the 
subject, from the author just quoted : — 

" The Olympic course was divided into two 
parts, the stadium and the hippodromus; the for- 
mer of which was an elevated open causeway, six 
hundred feet long, being appropriated to the foot- 



340 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

races, and most of the combats; while the latter 
was reserved for chariot and horse-races. Pansanius 
has transmitted to us an accurate description of 
both, particularly of the hippodromus ; but instead 
of a detail which would be littie interesting to the 
general reader, we prefer copying tjhe following ani- 
mated picture of the scene exhibited at Olympia on 
the morning when the games were opened : ' At the 
first dawn of day we repaired to the stadium, which 
was already filled with athletse, exercising them- 
selves in preparatory skirmishes, and surrounded by 
multitudes of spectators ; while others in still greater 
numbers were stationing themselves confusedly on 
a hill, in form of an amphitheatre, above the course. 
Chariots were flying over the plain; on all sides 
were heard the sound of trumpets and the neighing 
of horses, mingled with the shouts of the multitude. 
But when we were able to divert our eyes for a 
moment from this spectacle, and to contrast with 
the tumultuous agitations of the public joy the re- 
pose and silence of nature, how delightful were the 
impressions we experienced from the serenity of the 
sky, the delightful coolness of the air from the Al- 
pheus, which here forms a magnificent canal, and 
the fertile fields, illumined and embellished by the 
first rays of the sun.' * The candidates, having un- 
dergone an examination, and proved to the satisfac- 
tion of the judges that they were freemen, that they 
were Grecians by birth, and that they were clear 
from all infamous immoral stains, were led to the 
statue of Jupiter within the senate-house. This 



* Anacharsis, chap. 38. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 341 

image, says Pausanius, was better calculated than 
any other to strike terror into wicked men, for he 
was represented with thunder in both hands ; and, 
as if that were not a sufficient intimation of the 
wrath of the deity against those who should for- 
swear themselves, at his feet there was a plate of 
brass containing terrible denunciations against the 
perjured. Before this statue the candidates, their 
relations, and instructors, swore on the bleeding 
limbs of the victims, that they were duly qualified 
to engage, solemnly vowing not to employ any un- 
fair means, but to observe all the laws relating to 
the Olympic games. After this they returned to 
the stadium, and took their stations by lot, when 
the herald demanded — 'Can any one reproach 
these athletae with having been in bonds, or with 
leading an irregular life ? ' A profound silence gen- 
erally followed this interrogatory, and the comba- 
tants became exalted in the estimation of the assem- 
bly, not only by this universal testimony of their 
moral character, but by the consideration that they 
were the free unsullied champions of the respective 
States to which they belonged ; not engaged in any 
vulgar struggle for interested or ordinary objects, 
but incited to competition by a noble love of fame, 
and a desire to uphold the renown of their native 
cities in the presence of assembled Greece. Such 
being the qualities required before they could enter 
the lists, their friends, filled with anxiety, gathered 
round them, stimulating their exertions, or affording 
them advice, until the moment arrived when the 
trumpet sounded. At this signal the runners started 
off amid the cries and clamor of the excited multi- 
29* 



342 THE HEATHEN BELIGION 

tude, whose vociferations did not cease until the 
herald procured silence by his trumpet, and pro- 
claimed the name and abode of the winner. 

" On the last day of the festival, the conquerors, 
being summoned by proclamation to the tribunal 
within the sacred grove, received the honor of public 
coronation, a ceremony preceded by pompous sacri- 
fices. Encircled with the olive wreath, gathered 
from the sacrecl tree behind the temple of Jupiter, 
the victors, dressed in rich habits, bearing palm- 
branches in their hands and almost intoxicated with 
joy, proceeded in grand procession to the theatre, 
marching to the sound of flutes, and surrounded by 
an immense multitude who made the air ring with 
their acclamations. The winners in the horse and 
chariot-races formed a part of the pomp, their stately 
coursers bedecked with flowers, seeming, as they 
paced proudly along, to be conscious participators 
of the triumph. When they reached the theatre, the 
choruses saluted them with the ancient hymn, com- 
posed by the poet Archilochus, to exalt the glory of 
the victors, the surrounding multitude joining their 
voices to those of the musicians. This being con- 
cluded, the trumpet sounded, the herald proclaimed 
the name and country of the victor, as well as the 
nature of his prize, the acclamations of the people 
within and without the building were redoubled, 
and flowers and garlands were showered from all 
sides upon the happy conqueror, who at this moment 
was thought to have attained the loftiest pinnacle 
of human glory and felicity." Though the only 
guerdon that the victor received, was an olive-crown, 
yet this trifling mark of distinction powerfully stimu- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 343 

lated the acquisition of virtue, while it facilitated 
the cultivation of the mind, and, to souls animated 
by a noble ambition,* it possessed an incomparably 
higher value, and was coveted with far more inten- 
sity, than the most unbounded treasures.* 

The statues of the conquerors, called Olympion- 
icae, were erected at Olympia, in the Altis, or sacred 
grove of Jupiter. The return of the successful can- 
didates of fame, from the late scene of their trials 
and their skill, was not unlike the triumphal pro- 
cessions of the warrior-chieftains of antiquity : they 
rode in a chariot drawn by four horses, and every- 
where they were received with acclamations and the 
most profound respect. Painters and poets were 
employed in celebrating their names, and transmit- 
ting the memory of their deeds to posterity. The 
celebrity of this festival drew together not only the 
inhabitants of Greece, but also those of the neigh- 
boring islands and continents; and the Olympiad 
served as a common bond of alliance, and point of 
reunion to the entire Hellenic race. The name of 
Hercules having been introduced among the found- 
ers of the Olympic games, it is necessary to trace 
the nature and import of this myth, and so to illus- 
trate the design and character of those games as 
shall enable us properly to understand and justly to 
appreciate them. The reputed ancestor of Hercules, 



* According to the popular belief of the Greeks, Hercules, 
whom poets and romancers had converted into a hero, claimed 
no higher reward for his beneficent labors among mankind than 
the simple olive-crown, and hence this revered token of merit 
became the prize of Olympic renown. 



344 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

Perseus the shining, already enjoyed distinguished 
honors as a wrestler, at Chemmis, in Upper Egypt. 
There he could boast to have a temple and statue ; 
and there gymnastic games commemorated his 
name and his exploits. It is confidently asserted 
that he graciously condescended to honor the city 
of his celestial progenitors, by occasionally appearing 
in his temple, when his zealous votaries had the 
singular good fortune to find one of his enormous san- 
dals, measuring two cubits in length — the indubita- 
ble pledge of a fruitful year! These opportune and 
most auspicious epiphanies of the resplendent god, 
the devout Chemmisites gratefully acknowledged in 
the observance of athletic exercises and feats of 
agility, instituted, it is affirmed, by Perseus himself, 
and intended to be commemorative of annual, agra- 
rian blessings.* Of Hercules the Perseide, the Egyp- 

* Herodotus, speaking of Perseus, calls him a Jiero, though his 
description of him answers mainly to that of a god, as we have 
already had occasion to prove him to be. His words, embracing 
and illustrating the theme discussed in the text, are these : " Chem- 
mis is a place of considerable note in the Thebaid ; it is near Neapo- 
lis, and remarkable for a temple of Perseus, the son of Danae. 
This temple is of a square figure, and surrounded with palm- 
trees. The vestibule, which is very spacious, is constructed of 
stone, and on the summit are placed two large marble statues. 
Within the consecrated inclosure stand the shrine and statue of 
Perseus; who, as the inhabitants affirm, often appears in the 
country and the temple. They sometimes find one of his sandals, 
which are of the length of two cubits ; and whenever this hap- 
pens, fertility reigns throughout Egypt. Public games, after the 
manner of the Greeks, are celebrated in his honor. On this occa- 
sion they have every variety of gymnastic exercise. The rewards 
of the conquerors are cattle, vests, and skins. I was once induced 



m ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 345 

tian priests of Thebes related an anecdote to Herodo- 
tus, which, though apparently so trivial and destitute 
of dignity in its detail, is replete with profound astro- 
nomical significance. It happened on a certain oc- 
casion, it appears, that Hercules was seized with an 
irrepressible desire to see the person of Jupiter Am- 
nion — Amaun. It was in vain that the god, for a 
long time, resisted his unwonted importunities : they 
continued to be repeated with renewed energy and 
increasing vehemence. Obliged at last to yield, 
Jupiter killed a ram ; flayed it ; wrapped his body 
into his hide ; cut off his head, and placed it upon 
his own ; and thus disguised, presented himself to 
the anxious gaze of his eager curiosity. Owing to 
this strange incident, the Egyptian statues of Jupiter 
represented the god with the head of a ram; and 
such w T as the veneration of the Thebans for this 
animal, that, with the exception of the anniversary 
festival of Jupiter, they never put one to death. " On 

to inquire why Perseus made his appearance to them alone, and 
why they were distinguished from the rest of Egypt by the cele- 
bration of gymnastic exercises ? They informed me, in return, 
that Perseus was a native of their country ; as were also Danaus 
and Lynceus, who made a voyage into Greece, and from whom, 
in regular succession, they related how Perseus was descended. 
This hero visited Egypt for the purpose, as the Greeks also affirm, 
of carrying from Africa the gorgon's head. Happening to come 
among them, he saw and was known to his relations. The name 
of Chemmis he had previously known from his mother, and him- 
self instituted the games which they continued to celebrate." * In 
this statement — substantially true, we find Perseus travestied 
into a hero, and vice versa ; instead of the life and exploits of the 
god, corrupted and misrepresented by tradition and fiction. 

* Beloe. 



346 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

this solemnity," writes the Father of History, " they 
kill a ram, and placing its skin on the image of the 
god, they introduce before it a figure of Hercules ; 
the assembly afterwards beat the ram, and conclude 
the ceremony by inclosing the body in a sacred 
chest." All these coincidences are indicative of a 
vernal festival observed at Thebes. Jupiter- Ammon, 
or the sun in the zodiacal sign of the ram, opened 
the Egyptian year, and proclaimed the beginning of 
a new cycle of time.* Sem-Hercules was the imme- 
diate offspring of the sun-god Jupiter- Ammon, and 
the vernal sun in its full development. Hence the 
ram was symbolical both of Jupiter the father and 
Hercules the son. This mutual relation of affinity 
of the two gods, or rather of the two persons of the 
one god, was astronomically expressed by the Egyp- 
tians, as may be still seen from the Bembinic Isis- 
tablet, the series of the hieroglyphical devices of 
which commence with the ram, at the side of which 
stands a youth, bearing a lance in one hand, and a 
bird w T hich he tenders to the Ovilline beast> in the 
other: it is Hercules, appearing in the presence of 
Zeus, or Jupiter- Ammon, and gazing at the aries- 
god, his illustrious sire. The bird in his hand, is the 
undying Phoenix, the pregnant symbol of the great 
year of the Egyptians, the return of which was sug- 
gested by every recurrent anniversary or annual 
solar cycle; and therefore it was with admirable 



* From these facts it appears that already, at that period of 
the world, the retrograde motion of the equinoxes had given 
Aries instead of Taurus, as had formerly been the case, to the 
rising year. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 347 

propriety that it was placed into the puissant hand 
of Sem, the god of mature spring, full of life and 
vigor. In the category of evolutions of the Egyptian 
deities, Sem-Hercules was ranked among the second 
order of the twelve great gods of the people of the 
Nile, and constituted, in the opinion of some emi- 
nent mythologists, the thirteenth, being the transition- 
state or connecting link between the past and future 
evolutions of Sol — the solar year deified and imper- 
sonated according to the twelve signs of the zodiac, 
now father, then son; now living, then dead! There 
was an Egyptian and a Grecian Hercules ; the for- 
mer was the god, the latter, the demi-god and hero, 
the son of Jupiter and Alcmena, or, as others af- 
firm of Jupiter and Danae,. the daughter of Acrisius, 
king of Argos.* Of the Hercules whose divinity is 
unsullied by foreign admixture, Herodotus thus 
expresses himself: " Hercules is certainly one of the 
most ancient deities of Egypt ; and, as they them- 
selves affirm, is one of the twelve who were produced 
from the eight gods, seventeen thousand years before 
the reign of Amasis." Of the Grecian Hercules, the 
date of whose existence did not begin till five hun- 
dred years after the arrival of the patriarch Jacob in 
Egypt, he declares that in no part of that country, 
he was able to procure the least knowledge. Kings 
and heroes, both in Egypt and other countries, 
especially Greece, hesitated not to perpetuate their 

* The ancient Egyptians, at least -while the normal condition of 
their faith remained unimpaired, were never guilty of the folly of 
postulating the apotheosis of a human being : aniliropolatry, imply- 
ing the recognition of divinity, was therefore unknown among 
them. 



348 



THE HEATHEN KELIGION 



fame under the name and attributes of Hercules ; 
and the noble deeds and daring adventures, which 
they actually performed, or which fiction and obse- 
quious flattery created for them, were boldly or cred- 
ulously ascribed by the future historian to the spu- 
rious Hercules, the supposititious god-man of poets 
and fabulists. Such are the data upon which the 
existence of the genuine historic Hercules, the divine 
son and true god, is based. Hercules, the potent 
god, was the great and indefatigable wrestler in the 
zodiacal path, and it was for this reason that the 
reflecting and devout Egyptians recognized and 
adored in him the power of God, manifested in the 
triumphant and glorious ascension of the vernal 
sun in its northern orbit, after a successful conquest 
of the long night of winter, and those meteoric and 
tellurian influences which are so repugnant to or- 
ganic life. Governed by considerations like these, 
Sem, the gallant vanquisher of the pernicious powers 
of the earth and air, which prevail during a Boreal 
reign — the rebellious frost-giants of the Scandina- 
vians, and oppose themselves to the benignant dis- 
plays of the solar rays, is now placed beside the 
silent, limping Harpocrates — the sun in Pisces, 
struggling between winter and spring, with the 
chances of life and death almost equally balanced, 
and then, in juxtaposition with Jupiter- Ammon, — 
the growing sun, shining, however, with the feebleness 
of a still nascent light, while he himself is already 
clothed in the habiliments of resplendent solar 
power.* The sun having once attained the culmi- 

* The son, we see here, is greater than the father : just as the- 
eolar rays are more direct and intense in Taurus than in Aries. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 349 

nating point at the vernal equinox, the coming year 
is guarantied. Hence Sem- Hercules is the sun par 
excellence, and throughout its ecliptic revolution ; 
and hence, too, he is the brave gymnic hero running 
through all the stadia of the zodiacal course — the 
mighty and victorious wrestler with all the zodiacal 
beasts. In short, he is the ever combating, ever 
conquering, and never dying power in nature ; and 
therefore he bears in his hand the wonderful Phoe- 
nix, the emblem and pledge of eternal victory, and 
of the infallible unfolding and recurrence of the great 
year of solar time. From what has been said, it will 
be apparent how the name of Hercules came to be 
associated with that of the founders of the Olympic 
games; nay, why he had almost necessarily to be 
regarded, in an age of tradition and allegory, as the 
illustrious author of that famous institution, the soul 
and aim of which were a wrestling and vanquishing 
— the reflex symbols of the zodiacal labors or solar 
struggles and triumphs of the god of the knotted club, 
enacted and realized in a grand drama of histrionic 
display. Hercules was the worthy successor as well 
as the brilliant offspring of Perseus, and Hercules, 
the son of the sun, was his name. He followed 
resolutely and nobly in the path of light and glory 
first marked out by his illustrious sire, Perseus of 
Chemmis, and the magnificent synonyme of Jupiter, 
Mithras, Ormuzd, etc. It was, as has been already 
stated, in the ancient city of Chemmis, the native or 
adopted town of the Persean gods, according to 
Egyptian mythology, where the devout and grateful 
inhabitants celebrated an annual festival in honor of 
Perseus, the god of solar light and of the year — games 

30 



350 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

commemorative of agrarian blessings and social 
prosperity, at the season of the year when Hercules 
his great son, considered as the sun in Leo, had at- 
tained in his solar course, the extreme limits of the 
northern tropics ; and when accordingly the fully 
developed and. adult sun had matured the golden 
harvests of the earth. 

As to King Pelops, his Olympic fame owes its 
origin to the circumstance, that he reigned at Olym- 
pia under the powerful protectorate of Jupiter, from 
whose hand he had obtained the regal sceptre, and 
with it, the sanction of regal rights and supreme 
authority; and who, if the history of a fabulous era 
may be credited, not only assisted at the institution 
or revival of the Olympic games, but also conquered 
Oenomaus, king of Pisa, in a chariot-race, and re- 
ceived his daughter, the fair Hippodamia, as the 
prize of his victory. 

If, on the one hand, we contemplate the Olympic 
games in their astronomical origin and legitimate 
import, and, on the other, base our reflections pare- 
netically upon the mythic account of their institu- 
tion, it follows that the olive-crown was awarded to 
the successful combatants in the games, as the worthy 
successors and faithful imitators of their heavenly or 
heaven-sustained founders : as the chivalrous and" 
noble brothers of Hercules and Pelops, and the 
brave and glorious sons of Jupiter, who, according 
to the Greeks, was the first great wrestler with the 
gloomy, boreal powers of the earth and the adverse 
atmospheric agents, the Titans and giants of the 
mythists and poets ; the first wrestler at Olympia, 
where, tradition affirms, he once contended with 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 351 

Hercules the renowned demi-god; the first and 
heavenly Hella7iodike* and divine symbol of the tri- 
umph of all that is great or good, true or lovely, in 
the universe. In honor of him, the Olympic games 
were instituted ; and in honor of him, as well as 
with the laudable view to stimulate and expand the 
religious sentiments of awe, veneration, and devo- 
tion, and impress the human mind with a profound 
sense of its dependence upon a Supreme Being, 
Phidias wrought the famous colossal statue of Jupi- 
ter, considered as the Pater-Deus, — the lord of crea- 
tion, and the father of gods and men. This superb 
and wonderful production of ancient art stood in the 
temple of Jupiter, erected in the Aids, or sacred grove 
at Olympia, the central point of the pan-Hellenic 
festival, and the grand centripetal source of quad- 
rennial attraction, emulation, and glory, to the elite 
of the entire Hellenic race. 



* The Hellanodics — Ellanodikai, were the judges who had the 
entire direction of every thing appertaining to the Olympic fes- 
tival. They bore the usual ensigns of magistracy, and were 
clothed in purple robes : they were the immediate representatives 
of the Elean people in the Olympia. 



DIVISION IV. 



THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 

The Eleusinian mysteries derived their adjective 
appellation from Eleusis, a town in Attica, where they 
were celebrated with solemn pomp and typic rites. 
The era of their institution can no longer be deter- 
mined by the historian, but their reorganization and 
enlargement by Eumolpus, the son of Poseidon, and 
king of Thrace, date about fourteen centuries ante- 
rior to the birth of Christ, and are coeval with the 
reign of Erechtheus, the son of Pandion, and sixth 
king of Athens. They were divided into ta megala 
and ta mikra, or the greater and the lesser. The lat- 
ter were of an elementary character, and introduc- 
tory to the former. Though the contrary has been 
asserted, a critical examination of the subject leaves 
no doubt that both were annual festivals. The 
greater Eleusinia were observed in the autumn, the 
lesser in the early spring, with an interval of at least 
six months. They were emphatically agrarian fes- 
tivals, in which the introduction of agriculture and 
the cereal grains among mankind, and the varied 
and important blessings which they confer upon 
individuals and society, were gratefully commem- 

(352) 



THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 353 

orated. The autumnal mysteries were dedicated to 
Ceres, the vernal, to her daughter Proserpine, which 
is only another name for Ceres, considered as the 
earth in its rejuvenescence.* Bacchus also played a 
conspicuous part in both mysteries, but especially in 
the lesser, between which and the Attic-Bacchus 
mysteries there were some strong points of resem- 
blance. Upon a sarcophagus, among other hierc- 
glyphical representations, appertaining to the cerealic 
class of mythological ideas, appear Dionysus and 
Demeter, — the same as Bacchus and Ceres ; the 
former reclining upon the shoulders of the latter. 
Mounted upon a car, drawn by two steeds, stands 
Proserpine, renovated nature, and the Hora of the 
summer season, extending her fair hand to the jolly 
god, guides the spirited team of the benignant god- 
dess over the earth, strewn with garlands of grape- 
leaves. In a grove, between Sicyon and Phlius, 
called Pyraa, distinguished by a sanctuary of Deme- 
ter-Prostasia and Kore, there might be seen three 
statues in close proximity, bearing the faces of Bac- 
chus and the goddesses just mentioned. Besides, 
these three divinities had a temple in common at 
Rome, near the circus maximus. 

The lesser mysteries were celebrated at a place in 
Attica, known as Agra or Agrae, situated upon one 
of the banks of the Ilissus, and distant from Athens 
between two and three stadia. Rigid fasts preceded 

* In his work on the " Nature of the Gods," Cicero thus etymo- 
logically defines the name of Ceres : " Ceres dicitur quasi a Ge- 
rendis fructibus : aut quasi Serens, vel ab antiquo verbo Cereo, 
quod idem est ac Creo, quod cunctarum frugum creatrix sit et 
altrix." 

30* 



354 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

the solemnities. They were succeeded by purifica- 
tions in the Ilissus, which demanded the superin- 
tendence of the Hydranus, assisted by the Daduch. 
The lustral ceremonies being performed, the novice 
was required to place his feet upon the skins of the 
victims which had been offered to Jupiter-Milichius, 
and Jupiter- Clesius, after which the Mystagogue ad- 
ministered to him the oath, which obliged him to ob- 
serve inviolable secresy on all subjects connected 
with the mysteries. The initiation being thus far 
accomplished, the mystes pronounced the following 
sacred formula : " I have drunk the *meslin-drink — 
Kukeon; I. have taken the goblet from the shrine, 
and, according to custom, put it in the flasket, and 
thence back again into the shrine." * 

Any one, as may readily be supposed, could not 
be admitted into the mysteries. A barbarian, unless 
adopted by a Greek, whatever his merits, might be, 
was inevitably excluded from the eminent distinc- 
tion, and in the archonate of Euclides, slaves were 
not even permitted to enter the temple of Ceres. 
Not only murderers, but likewise all those who had 
committed manslaughter, however guiltless they 
might be of any criminal design, forfeited for ever 
all claims to so hallowed a privilege. A blameless 
life, a legitimate birth, and the enjoyment of all the 
rights and prerogatives of a freeman, were absolutely 
necessary to a participation of the sacred mysteries. 
Even claims as. fair and well founded as these were 
required first to be sanctified by the blood of bulls 

* Silvestre de Sacy thinks this formula constituted the pass or 
watchword of the mystai. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 355 

and swine, before they could procure an entrance for 
their possessor into the coveted institution. This 
scrupulous precaution in the admission of members 
is easily accounted for, when we reflect that the 
governing idea which pervaded the entire Cerealic 
religion, was that of peace and war; or, in other 
words, the war of matter with spirit, and the purga- 
tion of the former by the latter ; in short, it was 
the dogma of strife and reconciliation. For, accord- 
ing to the theological system of the heathens, the 
universe, considered as an existence or reality out of 
God, is a secession or apostasy, and constitutes the 
dualty or dyas of being. Hence, as the evil can only 
be remedied by a restitution or reunion, therefore 
all things must ultimately again return to God. 

The members of the lesser mysteries were desig- 
nated as the Mustai — the initiated, — though this 
term was also employed less definitely, or had a more 
extensive import ; those of the greater, as the Epdp- 
tai, and sometimes as the Ephoroi, both names sig- 
nifying seers or eye-witnesses. The title of Teletai 
likewise denoted a grade in these mysteries, but 
whether it implied perfection attained by the Mys- 
tai,* or had reference to the end of their former un- 
consecrated lives, cannot now be determined. From 
a passage in Silvestre de Sacy's " Researches into 
the Mysteries of Paganism," taken from the " Com- 
mentary of Olympiodorus on Plato's Phaedon," it 
appears that the Eleusinia recognized five degrees 

* In speaking of the initiated of both, mysteries, in the course 
of this article, I shall employ Mystes as the singular, and Mystai 
as the plural. 



356 THE HEATHEN KELIGION 

of rank among the initiated, of which the two first 
were confined to purifications ; the third, to the pre- 
paratory ceremonies ; the fourth comprised the for- 
mal admission into the lesser mysteries, and con- 
ferred the name of Mystes upon the initiated ; and 
the fifth, which consisted in the Epoptia or Epoptic 
state, and which the greater mysteries alone could 
confer. The lapsed were doomed to pass through 
five stages of trial and penance, before they could 
hope to be restored to their former rank. 

The ancients attached the highest importance to 
mysteries, and especially to the Eleusinian. A state- 
ment of Isocrates, contained in his " Panegyricus," 
may suffice to illustrate this truth : " When," says 
he, "after the abduction of her daughter Kore, or 
Proserpine, having wandered over the whole earth in 
search of her, Demeter arrived in our country, Attica, 
and felt anxious to express her obligations towards 
our ancestors, on account of certain favors which 
they had conferred upon her, she made them the 
recipients of the two greatest blessings which mortals 
can obtain from the gods, — agriculture, to which 
we are indebted that w T e need not live like brutes, 
and the mysteries, which fill the souls of those who 
participate in them with the sweetest hopes both in 
this and the future world.* Hence, in not confining 
these invaluable boons within their own narrow 
limits, but by disseminating them among the rest of 
mankind, the Athenians have proved themselves the 

* Demeter is the Greek name for Ceres, who again is synony- 
mous with the Egyptian Isis, the German Hertha, ete. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 357 

most devoted friends and ardent admirers of the 
munificent goddess." 

The delight with which the ancients celebrated the 
mysteries was proverbial, as the following sentence 
attests : " Oudeis muoumenos oduretai ;" that is, 
nemo in mysteriis tristis : in the mysteries, no one is 
sad ! One of the causes of this predilection for the 
mysteries is revealed in the popular creed of the 
heathen religion, that as the uninitiated must con- 
tinue to exist in the mire of matter, so they could 
expect only a sad end ; while the Mystai — as we 
learn from Hemsterhuis " On the Dialogues of Lu- 
cian" — would enjoy distinguished honor — proed- 
ria, in the spirit-world. That the introduction of 
agriculture and the cereal grains into Greece and 
other countries ; the elucidation of physical theology 
or the deified personifications of Nature, formed 
prominent themes of contemplation, reminiscences, 
and instruction among the Epoptai, is to be taken 
for granted, as the Eleusinia were sacred to Ceres, a 
name whose comprehensive import included all those 
elements and agents in the external world, which so 
essentially contribute towards agrarian prosperity. 

Having advanced the doctrine — which is both 
mythologically and historically true — that Egypt 
was the cradle of the Eleusinian mysteries, Silvestre 
de Sacy adds that the typical representations in the 
mysteries contained nothing, as far as physical na- 
ture is concerned, but symbols of the main operations 
of the natural world, or, to use his own language, 
" Principales operations de la nature." In the 
greater mysteries at least, agreeably to the general 
tenor of the moral theology of the heathens, piety 



358 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

and virtue, rewards and punishments, likewise con- 
stituted leading subjects of profound investigation 
and earnest reflection. The significant symbol of 
purity, life, and happiness, among the ancients, es- 
pecially in the ample creed of the mysteries, was 
water. Hermes, the Egyptian Mercury, and the first 
and greatest Mystagogos of all mysteries, bore a drink- 
offering cup in his hand, as the emblem of his holy 
profession. The mummy, wrapped up in its chrys- 
alis folds, and clutching a water jug, patiently and 
hopefully awaited a blissful resurrection. Upon the 
mummy covers in the catacombs of Egypt, appeared 
the consolatory apophthegm, " The cool water Osiris 
will give." Aquarius, one of the winter or northern 
signs of the zodiac, holds a water jug, to denote that 
he is the conductor of the souls out of this into a 
% higher and better world. 

The following remarkable passage from the Gor- 
gias of Plato, so well calculated to illustrate this 
train of ideas, we quote from the edition of Heindorf. 
The Athenian bee first calls attention to the doctrine 
according to which life was regarded as wretched 
and a state of death, our bodies as real graves, and 
death as true life. • After these remarks, he proceeds 
to notice the emblematical import of the water cask, 
and then adds : " Hence in the spirit-world — athtt, 
the excluded or uninitiated — amuetoi, will be most 
unhappy, and doomed to carry water into a leaky 
cask — eis ton tetre'menon pitho?i, in a sieve — koskino, 
just as leaky." 

The ethical connection of water with the actions 
and the fate of mankind, will further appear from the 
subjoined myth. Of the fifty daughters of Denaus, 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 359 

king of Argos, forty-eight — who were all equally- 
guilty of the atrocious crime of having murdered 
their Egyptian husbands on the first night of their 
nuptials — were condemned in Hades to fill a vessel 
full of holes, the water escaping through it as fast as 
it was put in. Hence their labor was infinite, and 
their punishment eternal ! Two of the daughters — 
some authors mention only one, thus augmenting 
the number of the delinquent sisters and treacherous 
wives — Hypermnestra and Amymone, preserved 
their innocence, while they proved true to their mar- 
ital vow, and became renowned as the discoverers of 
fountains in Argos, and the munificent dispensers of 
water to its sandy, arid soil. Amymone has even 
immortalized her name as the fair foundress of the 
Thesmaphorian mysteries. Mysteries and water ; 
water, virtue, and happiness ; and no water, vice, and 
misery, were, in that remote age of the world, cor- 
relative terms. A drop of water, according to Christ, 
would have been unutterable bliss to the voluptuous 
Dives in torment What is life ? what agrarian pur- 
suit without water ? Its absence is hell ; with its 
presence there may be heaven ! 

The doctrines taught in the Eleusinian mysteries 
were clearly based upon the Cerealic laws ; for the 
Cerealic institutions in Attica, and other countries, 
were emphatically Thesmophorian ; that is, festivals 
sacred to Ceres, who first invited the attention of 
mankind to the cultivation of the soil, and the use 
of the grains and fruits of the earth. Hence one of 
the honorable surnames of the beneficent goddess is 
Thesmophora, in allusion to this circumstance; for 
the name is derived from thesmon and phorai, to 



860 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

bring or carry the laws, — legifera. Through the 
typical traditions of a primeval age, represented in 
mystic scenes, the prominent cosmic agencies, placed 
in juxtaposition with the salient productions of their 
creative energies, were brought into proximity with 
human vision, and man beheld the demiurgus, Jupi- 
ter, with the sun and moon, and the embodied word 
of wisdom, Hermes ; Ceres, the absent, under the 
name of Kore, the maiden or daughter, also called 
Proserpine : the earth in the winter season ; and 
Ceres, the present, distinguished as the recovered 
Kore, or the maiden Proserpine : the earth in its re- 
stored organic life and vigor ; the metempsychosis 
and purification of the soul ; the lower regions with 
Pluto and Proserpine ; Triptolemus, Iasion, Andro- 
gens, Theseus, and all the great kings, planters, and 
terra-cultors of Attica, together with the symbolical 
display of the time and manner in which these civil- 
izers and benefactors of the human race introduced 
into their country, from distant lands, the cereal grains, 
the hortulan fruits, and agrarian pursuits and laws, or 
were instrumental in disseminating the knowledge 
and use of them among the rest of mankind. From 
such scenic representations, interpreted through the 
media of tradition and mystic symbols, the most 
important theological doctrines were deduced and 
communicated to the studious Epoptai ; especially 
were the dogmas of a Supreme Being, the originator 
and controller of the universe, and the perfectible 
nature and exalted destination of man, earnestly im- 
pressed upon their attention. From these premises 
it necessarily followed that the momentous truths 
involved in the faith in a palingenesia and immor- 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 361 

tality of the soul, formed a principal feature in the 
scholastic course of the Attic mysteries : a doctrine 
which obtained its origin, or at least its confirma- 
tion, in the attentive study of the seed-grain in its 
various stages of decay and development, from the 
time that it is buried in the soil till its frugiferous 
maturity. This striking and interesting physical 
phenomenon the Saviour of the world has hallowed 
as the symbol and pledge of the same paramount 
and consoling truth;* 

Leland, the author of " The Advantage and Ne- 
cessity of the Christian Revelation," etc., speaking 
of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as it 
was taught in the mysteries, expresses the opinion 
that " A future state was not taught there in grave 
and serious discourses, so as to instruct the people 
to form proper notions concerning it, but by shows 
and representations which might strike the senses, 
and make some present impression on the imagina- 
tion, but were not fitted to enlighten the understand- 
ing, and produce a real and lasting conviction in the 
mind." This opinion the learned doctor founds upon 
the denial of that article of faith by some of the later 
Athenians ; upon the declaration of Cebes, one of 
Socrates's disciples, who told his master that the 
doctrine he taught concerning the immortality of the 
soul and a future state, " met with little credit among 
men ; " and upon the fact that Socrates himself made 
the statement that his doctrine ivas not believed by the 
generality, etc., I will only add, that the doctrine of 
the immortality of the soul is taught in the Christian 

* John, twelfth chapter and twenty-fourth verse. 
31 



362 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

church without "representations and shows," and 
" in grave and serious discourses," and that — I make 
the assertion with profound grief — notwithstanding 
this contrariety in teaching, the unbelievers in this 
doctrine number legions ! 

The time which elapsed before the initiated into 
the lesser mysteries could be received into the great- 
er, has been variously estimated from a period of six 
months to that of a year, and even to that of five 
years. Father Petau advocates the first ; Plutarch, 
the second ; and Scaliger, the third. The - greater 
Eleusinian festival opened on the fifteenth of the 
month Boedromion, which, according to the discrep- 
ant theory of different authors, corresponded either 
to September or November. "But," observes Gil- 
lies, "as the Attic year was lunar, the months of 
that year could not exactly correspond to those of 
ours. In the computation of their months, the 
Greeks agreed not with other nations, nor even 
among themselves." On the first day of the festival, 
the initiates of the lesser mysteries assembled and 
took the necessary measures for their admission into 
the greater : it was the day of preparation. The 
second day borrowed its name from the hortatory 
phrase Alade Mystai — to the sea, ye initiated; for 
on this day the initiated or Mystai marched in pro- 
cession to the Saronic gulf, or at least to one of its 
inlets. On account of its saline properties, sea-water 
was deemed among the ancients to be especially 
efficacious in the cure of physical maladies, and the 
washing and bathing in it from religious motives 
was therefore typical of moral purity. The third 
day was fast-day, and it was spent in a total absti- 



IX ITS SYMBOLICAL DETELOPITZ : 363 

nence from all sensual enjoymens. It was observed 
in commemoration of the sorrow of the goddess 
- . on aeconnt of the abduction of her daughter, 
fondly denominated Kore, the maiden, but commonly 
known as Proserpine, by the enamoured and inexo- 
rable PIut . As an offering was made f es and 
Proserpine during thr festival, the presumption is 
- he fourth day of the celebration was dedicated 
to this solemnity. The fifth day was railed the 
Lampadon SemercL, the day of torches : thus c 
guished because on it the initiated went and 
two in procession, each bearing a torch in his hand, 
into the temple of Ceres at Ek sis . the Daduch, with 
a torch the size of which corresponded to his superior 
dignity, leading the way. The torches were t 
from hand to hand, and the smoke and flames which 
issued from them were considered to r puri- 
fying virtue. Their introduction into the mysteries 

ribed by mythology to the circumstance that 

. while perambulating the whole earth in search 
of ber lost child, illumined her wearisome path 
torchlight. Iacch a and ward of Ceres, and 

one of the surnames of Bacchu- . gave ppeilative dis- 
tinction to the sixth and most solemn day of the 
?aL On- this emphatically jubilan- -ung Iac- 

hus named from iachein — the same as clamor e 
.. in allusion to the shouts which the votaries . 
.- : used at the festival of their god, being 

ed with a myrtle-wreath, was carried from the 
Ceramicus, a public walk at Athens, to Eleusis. The 
initiated, likewise crowned with myrtle and display- 
ing the usual Bacchus symbols — the tt 
leaves, etc., followed the youthful del - In :lemn 



364 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

procession. The frequent exclamations of Iacchus, 
or rather Iacchos, and the chanting of paeans, still 
farther distinguished this procession from that of the 
torches, at once so stately and so taciturn. Iacchus 
had a temple at Athens, which bore his name, and 
was called Iaccheion ; he was worshipped as the me- 
diator between Ceres and her votaries, and hence his 
frequent invocation by the initiated on this occasion.* 
On the seventh day the initiated returned to Athens 
by the sacred road, a distance of ten miles, stopping 
at various places rendered sacred by tradition, or sig- 
nificant from their connection with religion ; as, at 
the site where the first fig-tree grew, and hence called 
the holy Jig-tree ; at the bridge which spanned the 
river Cephissus, etc. At the latter place they were 
met by many of the people of the neighborhood, 
when both parties indulged towards each other in 
good-humored jests and railleries, and this mutual 
jocosity and alternate play of wit was denominated 
Gephurism6s — the teazing at the bridge. 

It may not be inappropriate to remark here, that 
the halt of the mystic procession at the bridge was, 
properly speaking, made in compliment of the river 
Cephissus, with a view to commemorate the practice 



* Young Iacchus is the same as young Bacchus, and therefore 
Bacchus, properly so called, was his father, while Ceres claimed 
the relation of maternity to him. Hence, mythologically speak- 
ing, he is the joint offspring of Ceres — the earth or dry element, 
and of Bacchus — the wet, fluid constituents of the globe, and 
consequently the mediator between Ceres and her zealous wor- 
shippers, whose hope was based upon the bliss of living waters 
after this life, of which hope the water jug in the mysteries was 
the emblem. 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 365 

of the ancient Phoenicians, from whom the Cerealic 
religion was partly derived, to place the images of 
their tutelar deities, Hercules, Melkarth, etc., upon 
rafts and boats on the water. According to Kanne, 
these Phoenician gods were the Patachi — the door- 
keepers and key-bearers of Hades, to. which they 
conveyed the released souls of mortals upon Char- 
on's boat. Religious ceremonies, symbolical of these 
facts, were no doubt also performed at the Attic 
bridge ; yet history is silent or unsatisfactory upon 
the subject. 

The eighth day bore the appellation of Epidauria, 
which appears to have been sacred to iEsculapius, 
the god of medicine and the symbol of the mature 
autumnal harvest, and to have borrowed its name 
from Epidaurus, a town in the north of Argolis, in 
Peloponnesus, chiefly dedicated to the hygienic 
god, who had a famous temple there. If mythic 
record can be relied upon, it once happened on this 
day that iEsculapius came too late to the festival, 
and had therefore to be initiated by a posteal or 
after-consecration. From this precedent, so encour- 
aging to the dilatory, all late comers were permitted 
to enjoy the same unenviable privilege. In his Eleu- 
sinian connections with Ceres, iEsculapius is the 
same as Erisichthon, of whom mention has already 
been made : a fact which sufficiently accounts for 
his presence at the solemnities of the goddess. 

Plemochoe was the term which distinguished the 
ninth and last day of the Eleusinian solemnities. 
It owed its distinctive appellation to a tureen or flat- 
bottomed earthen vessel ; for on this day two vessels 
answering to this description were filled with wine, 
31* 



366 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

when the contents of the one was poured out to- 
wards the rising, and that of the other towards the 
setting sun. While the libation was offered, the 
initiated — as it appears from Proclus on Plato — 
looked alternately towards heaven and earth, as if 
they were there recognizing and adoring the father 
and mother of all things, pronouncing as they did so, 
the words Vie Tokuie. 

The final and most solemn consecration, the 
Epopteia, which was performed in the vestibule or 
outer court of the temple of Ceres, is generally be- 
lieved to have taken place in the night of the sixth 
day of the festival. On this momentous and thrill- 
ing occasion, the Hieroceryx commanded the pro- 
fane to withdraw. The oath prescribed to the initi- 
ated was again administered to them, and their assent 
to the mystic formulas, to which they had already 
been obliged to subscribe in the lesser mysteries, 
probably repeated. Upon this the Mystai put on 
new suits of clothes, — the symbol of moral regener- 
ation, over which a fawn skin, as the finishing grace 
in the mystic toilette, was thrown : it was emblemat- 
ical of the beauty, the diversity, and the symmetry 
of creation. Eudaimon and Olbios — be happy, and 
the good demon accompany you, were the congratu- 
latory expressions with which the honored and de- 
lighted Mystai were now saluted. These ceremonies 
being concluded, a profound darkness suddenly en- 
shrouded the assembly; lightning flashed, thunder 
rolled, and unearthly noises resounded through the 
apartment, while monstrous forms appeared on all 
sides, filling the recent Mystai with horror and con- 
sternation, — all symbolical devices, indicative of 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 367 

the primeval struggles of the Demiurgus with chaos, 
and of the disorder and confusion which prevail in 
the unimproved and unadorned state of the moral 
and physical world. The scene again suddenly- 
shifted, and the affrighted Mystai, conducted by the 
Mystagogos, were introduced into the inner temple 
or sanctuary of Ceres, which was brilliantly illumi- 
nated, and where stood the statue of the goddess 
magnificently adorned, and refulgent with a preter- 
natural splendor. This truly enchanting stage of 
the Epoptic career was denominated Autopsia, self- 
seeing ; and the happy aspirant after mystic honors 
was rewarded with a myrtle crown. His eyes were 
dazzled with the intense glare of light that every- 
where met his astonished gaze ; sweet and enraptur- 
ing tones of harmony fell upon his delighted ears ; 
and his soul, charmed by the magic influence of the 
autopsial state, was transported in the contemplation 
of the fairest forms and the loveliest scenery in nature : 
it was a foretaste of the anticipated union with the 
immortal gods ; a cosmic drama, in which the Hie- 
rophant represented the demiurgus, Jupiter ; the Da- 
duch, the sun ; the Epibomius, the moon ; and the 
Hieroceryx, Hermes — the logos, or all-pervading 
spirit of the universe.* At last the solemnities were 

* Beside numerous priestesses and inferior priests, four chief 
priests figured preeminently in the sacred mysteries, of whom the 
Hierophant — a lineal descendant of the Eumolpus, who is also 
known as the Mystagogos and the Prophetes — was the honored 
head, the Pontifex Maximus of Attica. The next in rank was the 
Daduch, the torch-bearer, whose duty it was, in conjunction with 
the Hierophant, to offer prayers and sing hymns to Ceres and 
Proserpine. Like his chief, he could boast of a diadem, but a 



368 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

closed with the words Kogx Ompax, which in their 
elementary, syllabic form resolve themselves into the 
tripartite sentence of Kogx, Om, and Pax, and, ac- 
cording to Wilford on Jones's " Asiatic Researches," 
are synonymous with the Hindoo dismissal formula 
contained in the words Cansha, Om, and Pacsha, 
with which the Bramins are still in the habit of con- 
cluding their public worship. Cansha or Canscha 
denotes the object of supreme desire ; Om (Aum) is 
the holy term by which the Supreme Being, Para- 
brahma, considered in his unrevealed, absolute state, 
is designated ; and Pacsha means successively change, 
series, order, duty. Beside vocal and instrumental 
music, the greater Eleusinian mysteries were also 
celebrated with public shows and gymnastic exhi- 
bitions, which lasted several days ; but of all the 

throne was the exclusive prerogative of the former. According 
to tlie import of his name, his functions required the Epibomius to 
officiate at the altar. These priests, in the order in which they 
have been described, represented the demiurgus or Jupiter, the 
sun and the moon, while the illustrious Hieroceryx typified 
Hermes, the active mundane intelligence, and coordinate counsel- 
lor of the demiurgus. Purple robes and myrtle crowns were the 
badges which distinguished these high dignitaries in common. 
Among the inferior priests may be mentioned the Hydranus, who 
superintended the lustral ceremonies of the Eleusinian candidates ; 
the Spondophori, who offered the libations ; the Pyrphori, who 
carried the fire ; the Hieraules, or sacred flutist ; the Iacchagogos, 
or the conductor of the Iacchus procession, etc. All the priests, 
without distinction of name or rank, washed themselves with the 
juice of the hemlock — Conium Maculatum — to promote conti- 
nence. The appellative title of the priestesses of Ceres and 
Proserpine was Hierophantides. Their lives and functions were 
subject to the supervision of a chief priestess, who administered 
the consecration rites to the initiated of her own sex, 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 369 

spectacles which distinguished their festivities, the 
Taurllia or bull-fights were perhaps the most signifi- 
cant as well as interesting. I shall therefore make 
them the concluding theme of the Eleusinian inves- 
tigations. They were celebrated at the close of the 
great Eleusinian festival, and, according to Aristides, 
the prize which was awarded to the successful com- 
batants of this symbolical game, consisted in fruits 
of the earth ; for Ceres, in whose honor the taurilia 
were exhibited, having introduced the knowledge of 
agriculture, her votaries aimed only to be rewarded 
with her gifts, — the means of their strength and 
agility in the tauro-machian contests ; contests which 
were not maintained by men who had forfeited their 
lives, or observed for the gratification of a brutal 
pleasure, as was the case with the gladiatorial shows 
of the Romans, or whose object was to afford period- 
ical amusement to the elite of the nation by the 
ruthless perpetration of deeds of blood and cruelty, 
as is the case with the Fiesta de Toros, or bull-fight 
of the Spanish people, but by virtuous and eminent 
citizens — the Genestatoi, as Artemidorus calls them 
— and for important religious purposes : religionis 
causa, says Levius. The taurilia were observed both 
on foot and on horseback, and the combatants might 
be either attired or naked. Of the method of coping 
on horseback with the taurian antagonists, some 
idea may be formed from Suetonius's life of the 
emperor Claudius, where the historian mentions 
mounted Thessalians qui feros tauros ad terram cor- 
nibus detrahunt. They who performed such feats 
were denominated taurelates, bull-lowerers, and he- 
raelkes, horn-drawers. Similar scenes are represented 



370 THE HEATHEN RELIGION 

upon coins, vases, relievos, etc. There can be little 
doubt that the fables of the Minotaurs, Centaurs, 
and Hippo- Centaurs, had their origin in the gymnas- 
tic feats performed in the taurilia, which consisted 
now and then in bearing off a young beast upon the 
athletic shoulders of the stalwart tauro-machist, or 
upon those of his fiery steed. The beasts most gen- 
erally employed in the labors of agriculture among 
the ancients, were those of the ox kind ; and as Ceres 
was the adored founderess of agrarian pursuits, 
which required the aid of those useful animals, they 
had to be hunted down, tamed, and broken to the 
yoke ; and one of the objects of the taurilia celebra- 
tion was to commemorate these facts. 

The Cerealic goddess deserved the most unbound- 
ed gratitude of her happy people, — the manly tillers 
of the soil, the planters and sowers of the cereal 
grains, and the enjoyers of rural abundance and 
social prosperity through her propitious influence. 
Hence they offered to her taurian victims ; made 
libations to her of their blood, which they poured 
upon the earth, the prolific lap of the patron goddess ; 
and burned their flesh, for a sweet savor, upon her 
numerous altars. Heaven may be justly regarded 
as the resplendent archetype of the Eleusinian tau- 
rilia ; for in the glittering path of the ecliptic, the 
sons of Zeus, Perseus and Hercules, as also Cephe- 
us, once king of sable Ethiopia, arc, as they were in 
the remote ages of antiquity, puissant wrestlers with 
the zodiacal beasts, which they subdue and drive in 
triumph towards Ceres-Chthonia, or the earth,* bring- 

* They bring the northern and southern signs of the zodiac 



IN ITS SYMBOLICAL DEVELOPMENT. 371 

ing heaven and earth in prolific union, and thus real- 
ize the conditions of every agrarian blessing. A 
herdsman, Bootes, is one of the northern constella- 
tions. A Sagittarius, or archer, Chiron, one of the 
greatest heroes of the age in which he lived, and be- 
sides a centaur — partly man and partly bull — is 
likewise translated to the heavens, and when the sun 
enters his constellation, it is at that period in autumn 
when the chase was begun among the ancients : the 
season at which the taurilia were celebrated. More- 
over, there is a southern constellation distinguished 
as the Taurus, the bull, which comprises a numerous 
herd of bovine cattle, in the two fields or clusters of 
stars, composed of the Hyades and the Pleiades. 
Near the feet of Taurus, Orion has assumed his zo- 
diacal position, a god-descended giant, who boasted 
that there was not an animal upon the earth which 
he could not conquer, and who was indeed, like 
Nimrod, a mighty hunter. ; and in heaven, where he 
reigns as one of the brightest constellations in the 
solar orbit, he is still armed with belt and sword, 
combating with the beasts of the celestial Chios, 
taming wild nature like Ceres, and rendering heaven 
propitious ^o the happiness of mankind, as did the 
Cerealic goddess the plastic earth. Finally, Perseus 
and Hercules, the indomitable wrestlers in the solar 
sphere, take diligent care that the sun-god Taurus 
shall be ready to wield his sceptre over the northern 
hemisphere, at the precise moment when the vernal 
equinox may demand his refulgent presence, and 



continually under that solar influence which is most propitious to 
the earth. 



372 THE HEATHEN RELIGION, ETC. 

Ceres shall have found her fair daughter Proser- 
pine. 

In closing these investigations, the author pre- 
sumes to indulge the hope that the deities who 
.figure in these pages may everywhere be treated 
with that deference which is justly due to beings of 
so divine a nature and illustrious a rank, and that 
the symbolical garniture in which their eventful 
lives and exalted functions are clothed, may reveal 
to the reader the unlimited care and impartial nature 
of the* adorable providence which God displays to- 
wards mankind, irrespective of creed or name. 



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the scripture who brought up children, and its object is to show what are the best 
and most scriptural modes of educating the young. It will please our religious 
readers, and suggest many useful ideas to mothers." — Daily Courant, Hartford. 

"Here is a charming book which every Christian mother should possess." — 
Ind. Democrat, Concord. 

"An invaluable volume, a precious offering, which we trust will find its way to 
many a youthful hand, to many a maternal bosom." — American Courier. 

"The author has a noble theme, and faithfully has it been unfolded and en- 
forced." — Christian Chronicle, Philadelphia. 

" It is such a book that no one but a lady could have written, and such an one 
as no lady can fail to enjoy in reading." — Evening Traveller, Boston. 

"It is the product of a beautiful mind, evidently under the guidance of a truly 
Christian and devout spirit." — Puritan Recorder. 

" It is a good book, and will repay more than one reading by all upon whom rests 
the Joyful responsibility of maternity." — Congregationalist. 



Jl 



10 






